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THE AMERICANS 



THE 



AMERICANS 



BY 
HUGO MiJNSTERBERG 

PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY 
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

TRANSLATED BY 

EDWIN B. HOLT, Ph.D. 

INSTRUCTOR AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 




NEW YORK 
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 

MCMV 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Received 

MAY 22 1906 

Cooyriehi Entry 
MAV 23,(1(04. 

COPY B. 



Copyright, ig04, by 

McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 

Published November, ig04, N 



Third Impression 



PREFACE 



PREFACE 

IN the Preface to my "American Traits," in which I defended 
German ideals and criticised some American tendencies, I said, 
some years ago: "It has been often questioned whether I am 
right in fighting merely against American shortcomings from a Ger- 
man point of view, and in trying to destroy prejudices on this side 
of the water; whether it is not, in a still higher degree, my duty to 
attempt the same for the other side; — for German prejudices con- 
cerning the United States are certainly not less severe, and the 
points in which Germany might learn from American culture not 
less numerous. The question is fair, and I shall soon put before 
the German public a book on American life — a book which deals 
in a detailed way with the political, economic, intellectual, and 
social aspects of American culture. Its purpose is to interpret 
systematically the democratic ideals of America." 

Here is the book; it fulfils the promise, and it might appear that 
no further explanation is needed. And yet, in sending a book into 
the world, I have never felt more strongly the need of prefatory 
excuses — excuses not for writing the book, but for agreeing to its 
translation into English. 

To outline American life for readers beyond the sea is one 
thing ; to appear before an American audience and to tell them 
solemnly that there is a Republican and a Democratic party, and 
that there are troubles between capital and labour, is quite another 
thing. To inform my German countrymen about America may 
be to fill a long-felt want; but, as a German, to inform the Ameri- 
cans on matters which they knew before they were born seems, 
indeed, worse than superfluous. 



via PREFACE 

When I was urged, on so many sides, to bring my "Americans" 
before the Americans, it was, therefore, clear to me from the outset 
that I ought not to do it myself under any circumstances. If I had 
translated the book myself, it would have become simply an Eng- 
lish book, written in Enghsh by the author ; and yet its only pos- 
sible right to existence must He in its reflected character, in its hav- 
ing been written for others, in its coming back to the New World 
from the Old. My friend. Dr. Holt, who has been for years my 
assistant in the Harvard Psychological Laboratory, has assisted, 
therefore, in this social psychological experiment, and translated 
the book from the German edition. 

I have been still more influenced by another consideration. If 
the book were chiefly a record of facts, it would be folly for a for- 
eigner to present it to the citizens; but the aim of the book is a quite 
difi^erent one. To make a real scientific study of the facts, I should 
have felt utterly incompetent; indeed, it may be doubted whether 
any one could hope to master the material of the various fields: a 
division of labour would then become necessary. The historian, 
the politician, the economist, the jurist, the engineer, and many 
others would have to co-operate in a scholarly investigation of 
American events; and I have no right to any of these titles. I am 
merely a psychologist, and have not set out to discover new ma- 
terial. The only aim of the book is to study the American man 
and his inner tendencies; and, perhaps, a truer name for my book 
would have been "The Philosophy of Americanism. " For such a 
task the outsider may be, after all, not quite unsuited, since the 
characteristic forces make themselves more easily felt by him 
than by those who have breathed the atmosphere from their child- 
hood. I am, therefore, anxious to insist that the accent of the 
book lies on the four chapters, "Spirit of Self-Direction," 
"Spirit of Self-Realization," "Spirit of Self-Perfection," and 
"Spirit of Self-Assertion"; while those chapters on the economic 
and political problems are the least important of the book, as they 



PREFACE ix 

are meant merely by way of illustration. The lasting forces and 
tendencies of American life are my topics, and not the problems 
of the day. For this reason the book is translated as it appeared 
six months ago in Germany, and the events and statistical figures 
of the last few months have not been added; the Philosophy of 
Americanism is independent of the happenings of yesterday. The 
only changes in the translation are abbreviations; for instance, the 
industrial tables, which every American can get easily from the 
government reports, are abridged; and, above all, the chapters 
which deal with the German-Americans are left out, as better 
remaining an esoteric discussion for the Germans. 

The purpose of finding the deeper impulses in American life 
necessarily demands a certain ignoring of the shortcomings of the 
hour. If we aim to work out and to make clear the essentials of 
the American mission in the world, we cannot take the attitude of 
the reformer, whose attention belongs, first of all, to the blunders 
and frailties of the hour; they are to us less important by-prod- 
ucts. The grumbler in public life sees in such a view of the Ameri- 
can, of course, merely a fancy picture of an imaginary creature; 
he is not aware that every portrayal involves abstraction, and that 
a study in Americanism means, indeed, a study of the Americans 
as the best of them are, and as the others should wish to be. 

But the optimism of my book has still another source. Its out- 
spoken purpose has been to awaken a better understanding of 
Americans in the German nation. Whoever fights against preju- 
dices can serve the truth merely in emphasizing the neglected 
good sides, and in somewhat retouching in the picture the exag- 
gerated shadows. But just here arises my strong reluctance. The 
optimism and the style of a defender were sincere, and necessary to 
the book when it addressed itself to the Germans; is it necessary, 
is it, indeed, sincere, to place such a eulogy of Americanism be- 
fore the Americans ? I know too well that, besides the self-direc- 
tion, self-realization, self-perfection, and self-assertion there is. 



X PREFACE 

more vivid still, the spirit of self-satisfaction, whose story I have 
forgotten to include in this volume. Have I the right to cater to 
this spirit ? 

But is it not best that the moods of criticism and optimism alter- 
nate ? The critical eagerness of the reformer which attacks the 
faults and follies of the day is most necessary; but it turns into dis- 
couraging pessimism if it is not supplemented by a profession of 
faith in the lasting principles and deeper tendencies. The r51e 
of the critic I have played, perhaps, more often and more vehe- 
mently than is the foreigner's right. My book on "American 
Traits " has been its sharpest expression. Does that not give me, 
after all, a moral right to supplement the warning cry by a joyful 
word on the high aims of true Americanism.? My duty is only to 
emphasize that I am myself fully aware of the strong one-sidedness, 
and that this new book is not in the least meant to retract the criti- 
cisms of my " American Traits. " The two books are meant to be 
like the two pictures of a stereoscope, which must be seen both 
together to get the full plastic effect of reality. It is certainly im- 
portant to remind the nation frequently that there are political 
corruption and pedagogical blundering in the world; but some- 
times it is also worth while to say that Americanism is something 
noble and inspiring, even for the outsiders, with whom naturally 
other impulses are stronger — in fact, to make clear that this 
Americanism is a consistent system of tendencies is ultimately, 
perhaps, only another way of attaining the reformer's end. 

Only one word more — a word of thanks. I said the aim of the 
book was to bring the facts of American life under the point of 
view of general principles, but not to embody an original research 
in American history and institutions. I have had thus to accept 
the facts ready-made, as the best American authors present them; 
and I am thus their debtor everywhere. Since the book is popular 
in its style, I have no foot-notes and scholarly quotations, and so 
cannot enumerate the thousand American sources from which I 



PREFACE xi 

have taken my material. And I am not speaking here merely of 
the great standard books and specialistic writings, but even the 
daily and weekly papers, and especially the leading monthly maga- 
zines, have helped to fill my note-books. My thanks are due to 
all these silent helpers, and I am glad to share with them the wel- 
come which, in competent quarters, the German edition of the 
book has found. 

HUGO MUNSTERBERG 
Cambridge, Mass., 

October 25, 1904 



/ 



CONTENTS 



I. POLITICAL LIFE 

1. The Spirit of Self-Direction 

2. Political Parties 

3. The President 

4. Congress 

5. Justice . 

6. City and State 

7. Public Opinion 

8. Problems of Population 

9. Internal Political Problems 
10. External Political Problems 



3 

35 
63 
85 

lOI 

"5 
137 
^55 
185 
201 



II. ECONOMIC LIFE 

11. The Spirit of Self-Initiative 

12. The Economic Rise 

13. The Economic Problems 

The Silver Question 
The Tariff Question 
The Trust Question 
The Labour Question 



229 

255 

278 
279 
289 
301 
318 



III. INTELLECTUAL LIFE 

14. The Spirit of Self-Perfection 

15. The Schools and Popular Education 

16. The Universities 

17. Science . 

18. Literature 

19. Art 

20. Religion 



347 
365 
393 
425 
449 
473 
496 



^i^ CONTENTS 

IV. SOCIAL LIFE p^ge 

21. The Spirit of Self-Assertion 53^ 

22. The Self-Assertion of Women 55 

23. Aristocratic Tendencies 59° 



PART ONE 

POLITICAL LIFE 



CHAPTER ONE 

The Spirit of Self-Direction 

WHOSOEVER wishes to describe the political life of the 
American people can accomplish this end from a num- 
ber of starting points. Perhaps he would begin most 
naturally with the Articles of the Constitution and expound the 
document which has given to the American body-politic its re- 
markable and permanent form; or he might ramble through his- 
tory and trace out from petty colonies the rise of a great world- 
power; or he might make his way through that multitude of events 
which to-day arouse the keenest public interest, the party strifes 
and presidential elections, the burdens and amenities of city and 
state, the transactions of the courts and of Congress. Yet all this 
would be but a superficial delineation. Whoever wishes to under- 
stand the secret of that baffling turmoil, the inner mechanism and 
motive behind all the politically effective forces, must set out from 
only one point. He must appreciate the yearning of the American 
heart after self-direction. Everything else is to be understood 
from this. 

In his social life the American is very ready to conform to the 
will of another. With an inborn good-nature, and often too will- 
ingly, perhaps, he lends himself to social situations which are other- 
wise inconvenient. Thus his guest, for instance, is apt to feel like 
a master in his house, so completely is his own will subordinated 
to that of the guest. But, on the other hand, in the sphere of pub- 
lic life, the individual, or a more or less restricted group of indi- 
viduals, feels that it must guide its own activities to the last detail 
if these are to have for it any value or significance whatsoever. He 
will allow no alien motive to be substituted — neither the self- 
renunciation of fidelity or gratitude, nor the aesthetic self-forgetful- 
ness of hero-worship, nor even the recognition that a material 



4 THE AMERICANS 

advantage would accrue or some desirable end be more readily 
achieved if the control and responsibility w^ere to be vested in some 
one else. This self-direction is neither arbitrary nor perverse; 
least of all does it indicate a love of ease or aversion to toil. In 
Russia, as a v^ell-known American once said, serfdom could be 
wiped out by a stroke of the Czar's pen, and millions of Russians 
would be freed from slavery with no loss of life or property. 
"We Americans had to offer up a half-million lives and many mil- 
lions' worth of property in order to free our slaves. And yet noth- 
ing else was to be thought of. We had to overcome that evil by 
our own initiative, and by our own exertions reach our goal. And 
just because we are Americans and not Russians no power on 
earth could have relieved us of our responsibility." 

When in any people the desire of self-direction dominates all 
other motives, the form of government of that people is necessarily 
republican. But it does not conversely follow that every republic 
is grounded in this spirit of self-direction. Hence it is that the 
republic of the United States is so entirely different from all other 
republics, since in no other people is the craving for self-deter- 
mination so completely the informing force. The republics of 
Middle and South America, or of France, have sprung from an 
entirely different political spirit; while those newer republics, 
which in fundamental intention are perhaps more similar, as for 
instance Switzerland, are still not comparable because of their 
diminutive size. The French republic is founded on rationalism. 
The philosophy of the eighteenth century, with its destructive 
criticism of the existing order, furnished the doctrines, and from 
that seed of knowledge there grew and still are growing the prac- 
tical ideals of France. But the political life of the United States 
sprang not from reasoned motives but from ideals; it is not the 
result of insight but of will; it has not a logical but a moral foun- 
dation. And while in France the principles embodied in the con- 
stitution are derived from theory, the somewhat doubtful doc- 
trines enunciated in the Declaration of Independence are merely 
a corollary to that system of moral ideals which is indissolubly 
combined with the American character. 

It is not here to be questioned whether this character is purely 
the cause and not also the effect of the American system; but so 
much is sure, that the system of political relations which has 



SELF-DIRECTION 5 

sprung from these ethical ideals constitutes the actual body- 
politic of America. Such is the America which receives the im- 
migrant and so thoroughly transforms him that the demand for 
self-determination becomes the profoundest passion of his soul. 
Such is the America toward which he feels a proud and earnest 
patriotism. For the soil on which his kingdom has been reared 
he knows but scanty sentiment or love; indeed, the early progress 
of America was always an extension of the frontier, an unremit- 
ting pushing forth over new domain. The American may be 
linked by personal ties to a particular plot of land, but his national 
patriotism is independent of the soil. It is also independent of 
the people. A nation which in every decade has assimilated mill- 
ions of aliens, and whose historic past everywhere leads back to 
strange peoples, cannot with its racial variegation inspire a pro- 
found feeling of indissoluble unity. And yet that feeling is pres- 
ent here as it is perhaps in no European country. American 
patriotism is directed neither to soil nor citizen, but to a system of 
ideas respecting society which is compacted by the desire for self- 
direction. And to be an American means to be a partizan of this 
system. Neither race nor tradition, nor yet the actual past binds 
him to his countryman, but rather the future which together they 
are building. It is a community of purpose, and it is more effect- 
ive than any tradition, because it pervades the whole man. Par- 
ticipation in a common task holds the people together, a task with 
no definite and tangible end nor yet any special victory or triumph 
to look forward to, but rather a task which is fulfilled at each 
moment, which has its meaning not in any result but in the doing, 
its accomplishment not in any event which may befall, but only in 
the rightness of the motive. To be an American means to co- 
operate in perpetuating the spirit of self-direction throughout the 
body-politic; and whosoever does not feel this duty and actively 
respond to it, although perhaps a naturalized citizen of the land, 
remains an alien forever. 

If the new-comer is readily assimilated in such a society, com- 
monly, yet it must not be overlooked that those who come from 
across the seas are not selected at random. Those who are 
strong of will are the ones who seek out new spheres of activity. 
Just those whose satisfaction in life has been stunted by a petty 
and oppressive environment have always cherished a longing for 



6 THE AMERICANS 

the New World. That conflict which every one must wage in his 
own bosom before he can finally tear himself away from home, has 
schooled the emigrant for the spirit of his new home; and only 
those who have been impelled by the desire for self-direction have 
had the strength to break the ties with their own past. Thus it is 
that those of Germanic extraction adapt themselves so much more 
quickly and thoroughly to the political spirit of America than those 
of Romanic blood. The Latin peoples are much more the vic- 
tims of suggestion. Being more excitable, they are more imita- 
tive, and therefore as individuals less stable. The Frenchman, 
Italian, or Spaniard is often a sympathetic member of the social 
life of the country, but in its political life he introduces a certain 
false note; his republicanism is not the American republicanism. 
As a moral ideal he has little or no concern with the doctrine of 
self-direction. 

The American political system, therefore, by no means rep- 
resents an ideal of universal significance; it is the expression of 
a certain character, the necessary way of living for that distinct 
type of man which an historically traceable process of selection 
has brought together. And this way of living reacts in its turn 
to strengthen the fundamental type. Other nations, in whom 
other temperamental factors no less significant or potent or ad- 
mirable are the fundamental traits, must find the solution of 
their political problems in other directions. No gain would accrue 
to them from any mere imitation, since it would tend to nothing 
but the crippling and estranging of the native genius of their 
people. 

The cultivated American of to-day feels this instinctively. 
Among the masses, to be sure, the old theme is still sometimes 
broached of the world-wide supremacy of American ideals: and 
a part of the necessary paraphernalia of popular assemblages will 
naturally consist in a reaffirmation that the duty of America is to 
extend its political system into every quarter of the globe; other 
nations will thus be rated according to their ripeness for this sys- 
tem, and the history of the world appear one long and happy 
education of the human race up to the plane of American concep- 
tions. But this tendency is inevitable and not to be despised. It 
must more nearly concern the American than the citizen of other 
states to propagate his ideals, since here everything depends on 



SELF-DIRECTION ; 

each individual co-operating with all his might, and this co-opera- 
tion must succeed best when it is impelled by an uncritical and 
blindly devoted faith. And such a faith arouses, too, a zealous mis- 
sionary spirit, which wants to carry this inspired state-craft unto 
all political heathen. But the foreigner is apt to overestimate 
these sentiments. The cultivated American is well aware that the 
various political institutions of other nations are not to be gauged 
simply as good or bad, and that the American system would be as 
impossible for Germany as the German system for America. 

Those days are indeed remote when philosophy tried to discover 
one intrinsically best form of government. It is true that in the 
conflicts of diverse nations the old opposition of realistic and ideal- 
istic, of democratic and aristocratic social forces is repeated over 
and over. But new problems are always coming up. The 
ancient opposition is neutralized, and the problem finds its prac- 
tical solution in that the opposing forces deploy their skirmish 
lines in other territory. The political ideas which led to the 
French Revolution had been outlived by the middle of the nine- 
teenth century. A compromise had been effected. The whole 
stress of the conflict had transferred itself to social problems, and 
no one earnestly discussed any more whether republic or monarchy 
was the better form of government. The intellectual make-up 
of a people and its history must decide what shall be the outward 
form of its political institutions. And it is to-day tacitly admitted 
that there are light and shade on either side. 

The darker side of democracy, indeed, as of every system which 
is founded on complete individualism, can be hidden from no one; 
nor would any one be so foolish, even though he loved and ad- 
mired America, as to deny that weaknesses and dangers, and evils 
both secret and public, do there abound. Those who base their 
judgments less on knowledge of democratic forces than on obvious 
and somewhat sentimental social prejudices are apt to look for 
the dangers in the wrong direction. A German naturally thinks 
of mob-rule, harangues of the demagogue, and every form of law- 
lessness and violence. But true democracy does not allow of such 
things. A people that allows itself to turn into a mob and to be 
guided by irresponsible leaders, is not capable of directing itself. 
Self-direction demands the education of the nation. And no- 
where else in the world is the mere demagogue so powerless, and 



S THE AMERICANS 

nowhere does the populace observe more exemplary order and 
self-discipline. 

The essential weakness of such a democracy is rather the im- 
portance it assigns to the average man with his petty opinions, 
which are sometimes right and sometimes wrong, his total lack of 
comprehension for all that is great and exceptional, his self-satisfied 
dilettanteism and his complacency before the accredited and trite in 
thought. This is far less true of a republic like the French, with its 
genius for scepticism, a republic nourished in aesthetic traditions 
and founded on the ruins of an empire. The intellectual condi- 
tions are there quite different. But in an ethical democracy, 
where self-direction is a serious issue, domination by the average 
intelligence is inevitable; and those who are truly great are the 
ones who find no scope for their powers. Those who appear 
great are merely men who are exploiting to the utmost the ten- 
dencies of the day. There are no great distinctions or premiums 
for truly high achievements which do not immediately concern 
the average man, and therefore the best energies of the nation are 
not spurred on to their keenest activity. All ambition is directed 
necessarily toward such achievements as the common man can 
understand and compete for — athletic virtuosity and wealth. 
Therefore the spirit of sport and of money-getting concerns the 
people more nearly than art or science, and even in politics the 
domination of the majority easily crowds from the arena those 
whose qualifications do not appeal to its mediocre taste. And by 
as much as mature and capable minds withdraw from political 
life, by so much are the well-intentioned masses more easily led 
astray by sharp and self-interested politicians and politics made to 
cater to mean instincts. In short, the danger is not from any wild 
lawlessness, but from a crass philistinism. The seditious dema- 
gogue who appeals to passion is less dangerous than the sly po- 
litical wire-puller who exploits the indolence and indifference of 
the people; and evil intent is less to be feared than dilettanteism 
and the intellectual limitations of the general public. 

But, on the other hand, it is also certain that when it comes to 
a critical comparison between the weaknesses and theoretical dan- 
gers of democracy and aristocracy, the American is at no loss to 
serve up a handsome list of shortcomings to the other side. He 
has observed and, perhaps overestimating, he detests the spirit of 



SELF-DIRECTION g 

caste, the existence of thost restrictions which wrongfully hamper 
one individual and as undeservedly advantage another. Again, 
the American hates bureaucracy and he hates militarism. The 
idea of highest authority being vested in a man for any other 
reason than that of his individual qualifications goes against all 
his convictions; and his moral feeling knows no more detestable 
breed of man than the incompetent aspirant Vv^ho is servile with his 
superiors and brutal to his inferiors. It is typically un-American. 
And if, in contrast to this, one tries to do justice to the proved ad- 
vantages of monarchy, of aristocracy and the spirit of caste, to 
justify the ruler who stands above the strife of parties, and to de- 
fend that system of symbols by which the sentiment of the past is 
perpetuated in a people, and the protection which is instituted for 
all the more ideal undertakings which surpass the comprehension 
of the masses, or if one urges the value of that high efficiency 
which can arise only from compact political organization — then 
the American citizen swells with contempt. What does he care 
for all that if he loses the inestimable and infinite advantage 
which lies in the fact that in his state every individual takes an 
active hand, assumes responsibility, and fights for his own ideals t 
What outward brilliancy of achievement would compensate him 
for that moral value of co-operation, intiative, self-discipline, and 
responsibility, which the poorest and meanest citizen enjoys 1 It 
may be that an enlightened and well-meaning monarch sees to it 
that the least peasant can sit down to his chicken of a Sunday; 
but God raised up the United States as an example to all nations, 
that it shall be the privilege of every man to feel himself responsi- 
ble for his town, county, state, and country, and even for all man- 
kind, and by his own free initiative to work to better them. The 
strife of parties would better be, than that a single man should be 
dead to the welfare of his country; and it is good riddance to aris- 
tocracy and plenty, if a single man is to be prevented from emulat- 
ing freely the highest that he knows or anywise detained from his 
utmost accomplishment. 

All such speculative estimates of different constitutional forms 
lead to no result unless they take into account the facts of history. 
Every side has its good and evil. And all such discussions are the 
less productive in that superiorities of constitution, although 
soundly argued, may or may not in any given country be fully 



10 THE AMERICANS 

made use of, while on the other hanc defects of constitution are 
very often obviated. Indeed, to take an example from present 
tendencies in America, nothing is more characteristic than the 
aristocratic by-currents through which so many dangers of de- 
mocracy are avoided. Officially, of course, a republic must re- 
main a democracy, otherwise it mines its own foundations, and 
yet we shall see that American social and political life have de- 
veloped by no means along parallel lines but rather stand out often 
in sharp contrast. The same is true of Germany. Official Ger- 
many is aristocratic and monarchic through and through, and no 
one would wish it other; but the intimate life of Germany becomes 
every day more democratic, and thus the natural weaknesses of an 
aristocracy are checked by irresistible social counter-tendencies. 
It may have been the growing wealth of Germany which raised 
the plane of life of the middle classes; or the industrial advance 
which loaned greater importance to manufacturer and merchant, 
and took some social gloss from the office-holding class; it may 
have been the colonial expansion which broadened the horizon 
and upset a stagnant equilibrium of stale opinion; or, again, the re- 
newed efforts of those who felt cramped and oppressed, the labour- 
ers, and, above all, the women; it does not matter how it arose — 
a wave of progress is sweeping over that country, and a political 
aristocracy is being infused with new, democratic blood. 

Now in America, as will often appear later, the days are over 
in which all aristocratic tendencies were strictly held back. The 
influence of intellectual leaders is increasing, art, science, and the 
ideals of the upper classes are continually pushing to the front, 
and even social lines and stratifications are beginning more and 
more to be felt. The soul of the people is agitated by imperial- 
istic and military sentiments, and whereas in former times it was 
bent on freeing the slaves it now discovers "the white man's bur- 
den" to lie in the subjugation of inferior races. The restrictions 
to immigration are constantly being increased. Now of course 
all this does not a whit prejudice the formal political democracy 
of the land; it is simply a quiet, aristocratic complement to the 
inner workings of the constitution. 

The presence, and even the bare possibility, here, of such by- 
currents, brings out more clearly how hopeless the theoretical esti- 
mation of any isolated form of statehood is, if it neglects the fac- 



SELF-DIRECTION ii 

tors introduced by the actual life of the people. The American 
democracy is not an abstractly superior system of which a Euro- 
pean can approve only by becoming himself a republican and con- 
demning, incidentally, his own form of government: it is rather, 
merely, the necessary form of government for the types of men and 
the conditions which are found here. And any educated Ameri- 
can of to-day fully realizes this. No theoretical hair-splitting will 
solve the problem as to what is best for one or another country; 
for that true historical insight is needed. And even when the 
histories of two peoples are so utterly dissimilar as are those of 
America and Germany, it by no means follows, as the social by- 
currents just mentioned show, that the real spirit of the peoples 
must be unlike. Democratic America, with its unofficial aris- 
tocratic leanings, has, in fact, a surprising kinship to mon- 
archical Germany, with its inner workings of a true democracy. 
The two peoples are growing into strong resemblance, although 
their respective constitutions flourish and take deeper root. 

The beginnings of American history showed unmistakably and 
imperatively that the government of the American people must 
be, in the words of Lincoln, "a government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people." No one dreamed when the Consti- 
tution of the United States was framed, some hundred and seven- 
teen years ago, that this democratic instrument would ever be 
called on to bind together a mighty nation extending from Maine 
to California. And, indeed, such a territorial expansion would 
undoubtedly have stretched and burst the unifying bonds of this 
Constitution, if the distance between Boston and San Francisco 
had not meanwhile become practically shorter than the road from 
Boston to Washington was in those early days. But that this 
Constitution could so adapt itself to the undreamt broadening of 
conditions, that it could continue to be the mainstay of a people 
that was indefinitely extending itself by exchange and purchase, 
conquest and treaty, and that in no crisis has an individual or 
party succeeded in any tampering with the rights of the people; all 
this shows convincingly that the American form of state was not 
arbitrarily hit on, but that it was the outcome of an historical 
development. 



12 THE AMERICANS 

The spirit of this commonwealth was not first conceived 
in the year 1787. It was strong and ripe long before the delegates 
from the Thirteen States assembled under Washington's leader- 
ship in Independence Hall at Philadelphia. The history of the 
English colonists to the Atlantic coast shows from the very first 
what weight they attached to the duties and rights of the individ- 
ual, and foretells as well the inevitable result, their unloosing from 
the mother country and final declaration of their independence. 

We may consider the different lines of development which 
began early in the seventeenth century, after the feeble attempts 
at colonization from England, France and Spain in the latter half 
of the sixteenth century had miscarried and left socially no traces. 
French settlements flourished as early as 1605, chiefly however in 
Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada, and in 1609 settlements 
of Dutch, whose colony on the Hudson River, the present New 
York, soon passed over into English hands. The development of 
the Spanish colonies on the Gulf of Mexico went on outside the 
territory of these young United States; and so the story of the 
meagre years of America is comprised in the history of the 
English colonies alone. 

These colonies began diversely but came to resemble one 
another more and more as time went on. There can be no greater 
contrast than between the pioneer life of stout-willed men, who 
have left their native soil in order to live in undisturbed enjoyment 
of their Puritan faith, seeking to found their little communities on 
simple forms of self-government, and on the other hand the occupa- 
tion of a rich trading company under royal charter, or the inaugura- 
tion of a colony of the crown. But these difi^erences could not be pre- 
served. The tiny independent communities, as they grew in con- 
sideration, felt the need of some protecting power and therefore 
they looked once more to England; while, on the other hand, 
the more powerful, chartered colonies tended to loose themselves 
from the mother country, feeling, as they soon did, that their 
interests could not be well administered from across a broad 
ocean. In spite of the protecting arm of England, they felt it to 
be a condition of their sound growth that they should manage their 
domestic aff^airs for themselves. Thus it happened that all the colo- 
nies aHke were externally dependent on England, while internally 
they were independent and were being schooled in citizenship. 



SELF-DIRECTION 13 

The desire for self-government as a factor in the transformations 
which went on can very easily be traced; but it would be harder 
to say how far utilitarian and how far moral factors entered in. 
Virginia took the first step. Its first settlement of 1606 was 
completely subject to the king, who granted homesteads but no 
political rights to the colonists. It was a lifeless undertaking un- 
til 1609, when its political status was changed. The administra- 
tion of the colony was entrusted to those who were interested in 
its material success. It became a great business undertaking 
which had everything in its favour. At the head was a London 
company, which for a nominal sum had been allowed to purchase 
a strip of land having four hundred miles of seacoast and extend- 
ing inland indefinitely. This land contained inestimable natural 
resources, but needed labour to exploit them. The company then 
offered to grant homes on very favourable terms to settlers, re- 
ceiving in return either cash or labour; and these inducements, 
together with the economic pressure felt by the lower classes at 
home, brought about a rapid growth of the colony. Now since 
this colony was organized like a military despotism, whose ruler, 
however, was no less than three thousand miles away, the interests 
of the company had to be represented by officials delegated to live 
in the colony. The interests of these officials were of course never 
those of the colonists, and presently, moreover, unscrupulous 
officials commenced to misuse their power; so that as a result, while 
the colony flourished, the company was on the brink of failure. 
The only way out of this difficulty was to concede something to the 
colonists themselves, and harmonize their interests with those of 
the company by granting them the free direction of their own 
affairs. It was arranged that every village or small city should be 
a political unit and as such should send two delegates to a con- 
vention which sat to deliberate all matters of common concern. 
This body met for the first time in 16 19; and in a short time it 
happened, as was to be expected, that the local government felt 
itself to be stronger than the mercantile company back in London. 
Disputes arose, and before five years the company had ceased to 
exist, and Virginia became a royal province. But the fact re- 
mained that in the year 1619 for the first time a deliberative body 
representing the people had met on American soil. The first step 
toward freedom had been taken. And with subtle irony fate de- 



14 THE AMERICANS 

creed that in this same year of grace a Dutch ship should land the 
first cargo of African negroes in the same colony, as slaves. 

That other form of political development, w^hich started in the 
voluntary compact of men v^ho ow^ned no other allegiance, v^as 
first exemplified in the covenant of those hundred and tv^o Puri- 
tans who landed from the Mayflower at Plymouth, in the year 
1620, having forsaken England in order to enjoy religious free- 
dom in the New World. A storm forced them to land on Cape 
Cod, where they remained and amid the severest hardships built 
up their little colony, which, as no other, has been a perpetual 
spring of moral force. Even to-day the best men of the land de- 
rive their strength from the moral courage and earnestness of life 
of the Pilgrims. Before they landed they signed a compact, in 
which they declared that they had made this voyage " for ye glory 
of God and advancement of ye Christian faith, and honour of our 
King and countrie," and that now in the sight of God they would 
" combine . . . togeather into a civil body politik for our better 
ordering and preservation and furtherance of ye end aforesaid, 
and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute and frame such just 
and equal lawes, ordinances, actes, constitutions and offices from 
time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for 
ye generall good of ye colonic." 

The executive was a governor and his assistants, elected an- 
nually from the people: while the power to make laws remained 
with the body of male communicants of the church. And so it re- 
mained for eighteen years, until the growth of the colony made it 
hard for all church-members to meet together, so that a simple 
system of popular representation by election had to be introduced. 
This colony united later with a flourishing trading settlement, 
which centred about Salem; and these together formed the Massa- 
chusetts Bay Colony, which in 1640 numbered already twenty 
thousand souls. 

The covenant which was drawn up on board the Mayflower is 
to be accounted the first voluntary federation of independent 
Americans for the purposes of orderly government. The first 
written constitution was drawn up in the colony of Connecticut, 
a colony which repeated essentially the successful experiments of 
New Plymouth, and which consisted of agricultural settlements 
and small posts for trading with the Indians situated at Windsor 



SELF-DIRECTION is 

and Hartford and other places along the Connecticut Valley. 
Led by common interests, they adopted in 1638 a formal con- 
stitution. 

There was still a third important type of colonial government, 
which was at first thoroughly aristocratic and English, and never- 
theless became quickly Americanized. It was the custom of the 
King to grant to distinguished men, under provision of a small 
tribute, almost monarchical rights over large tracts of land. The 
first such man was Lord Baltimore, who received in 1632 a title to 
the domain of Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay. He enjoyed 
the most complete princely prerogatives, and pledged to the crown 
in return about a fifth part of the gold and silver mined in his 
province. In 1664 Charles the Second gave to his brother, the Duke 
of York, a large territory, which was soon broken up, and which 
included what are now known as the States of Vermont, New Jer- 
sey, and Delaware. The great provinces of Georgia and Carolina 
— now North and South Carolina — were awarded by the same 
King to one of his admirals. Sir William Penn, for certain services. 
Penn died, and his son, who found himself in need of the sixteen 
thousand pounds which his father had loaned to the King, grati- 
fied that monarch by accepting in their stead a stretch of coast 
lands extending between the fortieth and forty-third degrees of 
latitude. 

In this way extensive districts were turned over to the caprice 
of a few noblemen; but immediately the spirit of self-direction 
took everywhere root, and a social-political enthusiasm proceeded 
to shape the land according to new ideals. Carolina took counsel 
of the philosopher, Locke, in carrying out her experiment. Mary- 
land, which was immediately prospered with two hundred men of 
property and rank, chiefly of Roman Catholic faith, started out 
with a general popular assembly, and soon went over to the repre- 
sentative system. And Penn's constructive handiwork, the 
Quaker State of Pennsylvania, was intended from the first to be 
"a consecrated experiment." Penn himself explained that he 
should take care so to arrange the politics of his colony that 
neither he himself nor his successors should have an opportunity 
to do wrong. Penn's enthusiasm awoke response from the 
continent: he himself founded the "city of brotherly love," 
Philadelphia; and Franz Daniel Pastorius brought over his 



i6 THE AMERICANS 

colony of Mennonites, the first German settlers, who took up 
their abode at Germantown. 

Thus it was that the spirit of self-reliant and self-assertive in- 
dependence took root in the most various soils. But that which 
led the colonies to unite was not their common sentiments and 
ambitions, but it was their common enemies. In spite of the 
similarity of their positions there was no lack of sharp contrasts. 
And perhaps the most striking of these was the opposition between 
the southern colonies, with their languid climate, where the plant- 
ers left all the work to slaves, and the middle and northern prov- 
inces, where the citizens found in work the inspiration of their 
lives. The foes which bound together these diverse elements were 
the Indians, the French, the Spanish, and lastly their parent 
race, the English. 

The Indian had been lord of the land until he was driven back 
by the colonists to remoter hunting territory. The more warlike 
tribes tried repeatedly to wipe out the white intruder, and con- 
stantly menaced the isolated settlements, which were by no means 
a match for them. Soon after the first serious conflict in 1636, the 
Pequot war, Rhode Island, which was a small colony of scattered 
settlements, made overtures toward a protective alliance with her 
stronger neighbours. In this she was successful, and together 
with Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut, 
formed the United Colonies of New England. This union was of 
little practical importance except as a first lesson to the colonies to 
avoid petty jealousies and to consider a closer mutual alliance as a 
possibility which would by no means impair the freedom and in- 
dependence of the uniting parties. 

The wars with the French colonies had more serious conse- 
quences. The French, who were the natural enemies of all Eng- 
lish settlements, had originally planted colonies only in the far 
north, in Quebec in 1608. But during those decades in which the 
English wayfarers were making homes for themselves along the 
Atlantic coast, the French were migrating down from the north 
through the valley of the Saint Lawrence and along the Great 
Lakes to the Mississippi River. Then they pressed on down this 
stream to its mouth and laid title to the tremendous tracts which it 
drains, in the name of the French crown. This country they 
called after King Louis XIV, Louisiana. They had not come as 



SELF-DIRECTION 17 

colonists, but solely with an eye to gain, hoping to exploit these un- 
touched resources in behalf of the Canadian fur traffic; and close 
on the heels of the trader came the Catholic priest. Thus the 
territory that flanked the English colonies to inland fell into French 
hands, whereas the land-grants of the English crown so read that 
only the Pacific Ocean should be the western boundary. A col- 
lision was therefore inevitable, although indeed mountains and 
virgin forests separated the coastland settlements from the inland 
regions of the Mississippi where the French had planted and for- 
tified their trading posts. 

When, in 1689, war broke out in Europe between England and 
France, a fierce struggle began between their representatives in 
the New World. But it was not now as it had been in the Indian 
war, where only a couple of colonies were involved. All the 
colonies along the coast were threatened by a common enemy. 
A congress of delegates convened at New York in April of 1690, 
in which for the first time all the colonies were invited to take part. 
Three long wars followed. The greatest advantage on the French 
side was that from the first they had been on good terms with the 
Indians, whose aid they were now able to enlist. But the French 
were numerically weak, and received but little assistance from 
their mother country. When in 1766 the last great war broke out 
the English colonies had a population of a million and a quarter, 
while the French had only a tenth as many. Chiefly and finally, 
the English colonists were actual settlers, hardened and matured 
through carrying the responsibilities of their young state, and 
fighting for hearth and home; the French were either traders or 
soldiers. The principle of free government was destined on this 
continent to triumph. Washington, then a young man, led the 
fight; the English Secretary of State, William Pitt, did everything 
in his power to aid; and the victory was complete. By the treaty 
of 1763 all French possessions east of the Mississippi were given to 
England, with the exception of New Orleans, which, together with 
the French possessions west of the Mississippi, went to Spain. 
Spain meanwhile ceded Florida to England. Thus the entire 
continent was divided between England and Spain. 

But the Seven Years War had not merely altered the map of 
America; it had been an instructive lesson to the colonists. They 
had learned that their fortunes were one; that their own generals 



i8 THE AMERICANS 

and soldiers were not inferior to any which England could send 
over; and lastly, they had come to see that England looked at the 
affairs of the colonies strictly from the point of view of her own 
gain. Herewith was opened up a new prospect for the future: 
the French no longer threatened and everything this side of 
the Mississippi stood open to them and promised huge resources. 
What need had they to depend further on the English throne ^. 
The spirit of self-direction could now consistently come forward 
and dictate the last move. 

It is true that the colonists were still faithful English subjects, 
and in spite of their independent ambitions they took it for granted 
that England would always direct their foreign policy, would have 
the right to veto such laws as they passed, and that the English 
governors would always be recognized as official authorities. But 
now the English Parliament planned certain taxations thatwere the 
occasion of serious dispute. The Thirteen Colonies, which in the 
meantime had grown to be a population of two million, had by 
their considerable war expenditures shown to the debt-encumbered 
Britons the thriving condition of colonial trade. And the latter 
were soon ready with a plan to lay a part of the public taxation on 
the Americans. It was not in itself unfair to demand of the colon- 
ies some contribution to the public treasury, since many of the ex- 
penditures were distinctly for their benefit; and yet it must have 
seemed extraordinary to these men who had been forced from 
childhood to shift for themselves, and who believed the doctrine 
of self-government to be incontrovertible. They objected to pay- 
ing taxes to a Parliament in which they had no representation; 
and the phrase, "no taxation without representation," became 
the motto of the hour. 

The Stamp Tax, which prescribed the use of revenue stamps on 
all American documents and newspapers, was received with con- 
sternation, and societies called the Sons of Freedom were formed 
throughout the land to agitate against this innovation. The 
Stamp Tax Congress, which met in New York in 1765, repudiated 
the law in outspoken terms. Nor did it halt with a mere express- 
ion of opinion; the spirit of self-direction was not to be molested 
with impunity. Close on the resolve not to observe the law, came 
the further agreement to buy no English merchandise. England 
had to waive the Stamp Tax, but endless mutterings and recrim- 



SELF-DIRECTION ig 

inations followed which increased the bitterness. Both sides 
were ripe for war when, in 1770, England issued a proclamation 
laying a tax on all tea imported to the colonies. The citizens of 
Boston became enraged and pitched an English ship-load of tea 
into the harbour. Thereupon England, equally aroused, pro- 
ceeded to punish Boston by passing measures designed to ruin the 
commerce of Boston and indeed all Massachusetts. The Thir- 
teen Colonies took sides with Massachusetts and a storm became 
imminent. The first battle was fought on the 19th of April, 1775; 
and on July 4th, 1776, the Thirteen Colonies declared their in- 
dependence of England. Henceforth there were to be no colonies 
but in their place thirteen free states. 

The Declaration of Independence was composed by Jefferson, 
a Virginian, and is a remarkable document. The spirit that in- 
forms it is found in the following lines: "We hold these truths to 
be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are en- 
dowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That 
to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, de- 
riving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . ." 
The sins of the English king and people against America are 
enumerated at length, and in solemn language the United States 
of America are declared independent of the English people, who 
are henceforth to be as "the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in 
peace friends." This Declaration was signed by delegates from 
the states in Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, where hung the 
famous bell, with its inscription, "Proclaim liberty throughout 
all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." 

The spirit of self-direction had triumphed; but the dangers were 
by no means wholly passed. England sent over no more govern- 
ors, and had indeed been repulsed; but she had as yet no inten- 
tion of giving in. The war dragged on for five long years, and the 
outcome was uncertain until in 1781 Cornwallis was brought to 
surrender. Then England knew that she had lost the contest. 
The king desired still to prolong the war, but the people were tired 
of it and, the ministry having finally to yield, peace was declared 
in April of the year 1783. This was no assurance of an harmoni- 
ous future, however. That solidarity which the colonies had felt 
in the face of a common enemy now gave way to petty jealousies 



20 THE AMERICANS 

and oppositions, and the inner weakness of the new Union was re- 
vealed. In itself the Union had no legal authority over the sev- 
eral states, and while during the war the affairs of the country had 
fallen into disorder, yet the Union had no power to conduct 
foreign diplomacy or even to collect customs. 

It was rather in their zeal for self-direction that at first consider- 
able portions of the population seemed disinclined to enlarge the 
authority of the central organization. Self-direction begins with 
the individual or some group of individuals. The true self-direc- 
tion of society as a whole was not to be allowed to encroach on the 
rights of the individual, and this was the danger feared. Each 
state, with its separate interests and powers, would not give up 
its autonomy in favour of an impersonal central power which 
might easily come to tyrannize over the single state in much the 
same way as the hated English throne had done. And yet the 
best men of the country were brought at length more and more 
to the opposite view; a strong central authority, in which the 
states as a whole should become a larger self-directing unit, 
carrying out and ensuring the self-direction of the component 
members, was seen to be a necessity. Another congress of repre- 
sentatives from all the states was convened in Independence Hall, 
at Philadelphia, and this body of uncommonly able men sat for 
months deliberating ways by which the opposing factions of fed- 
eralism and anti-federalism could be brought together in a satis- 
factory alliance. It was obvious that compromises would have to 
be made. So, for instance, it was conceded that the smallest state, 
like the largest, should be represented in the senate by two dele- 
gates: and the single state enjoyed many other rights not usual in 
a federation. But, on the other hand, it was equally certain that 
the chief executive must be a single man with a firm will, and that 
this office must be refilled at frequent intervals by a popular elec- 
tion. A few had tentatively suggested making Washington king, 
but he stood firm against any such plan. The republican form of 
government was in this instance no shrewdly devised system 
which was adopted for the sake of nicely spun theoretical advan- 
tages — it was the necessity of the time and place, the natural 
culmination of a whole movement. It was as absolutely necessary 
as the consolidation of the German states, eighty years later, under 
an imperial crown. The congress eventually submitted a con- 



I 



SELF-DIRECTION 21 

stitutional project to the several state legislatures, for their sum- 
mary approval or rejection. Whereon the anti-federalistic fac- 
tions made a final effort, but were outvoted, and the Constitution 
v^as adopted. In 1789 George Washington was elected the first 
president of the United States. 

It would take a lively partisan to assert, as one sometimes does, 
that this Constitution is the greatest achievement of human in- 
tellect, and yet the severest critics have acknowledged that a genius 
for statesmanship is displayed in its text. Penned in an age 
which w^as given over to bombastic declamation, this document 
lays down the fundamental lines of the new government with great 
clearness and simplicity. "We, the people of the United States," 
it begins, "in order to form a more perfect union, establish jus- 
tice, insure domestic tranquillityj provide for the common defence, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to 
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Consti- 
tution for the United States of America." This is the entire intro- 
duction. The contents come under seven articles. The first article 
provides for the making of laws, this power to be vested in a Con- 
gress consisting of a Senate and House of Representatives; for the 
business and daily routine of this Congress, as well as its powers 
and obligations. The second article provides for the executive 
power, to be vested in the person of the President, who is elected 
every fourth year; the third article provides for a judiciary; the 
fourth defines the mutual relations of separate states; and the last 
three articles concern the adoption of the Constitution and the 
conditions under which it may be amended. 

The need of amendments and extensions to this Constitution 
was foreseen and provided for. How profoundly the original 
document comprehended and expressed the genius of the Ameri- 
can people may be seen from the fact that during a century which 
saw an unexampled growth of the country and an undreamed-of 
transformation of its foreign policy, not a single great principle of 
the Constitution was modified. After seventy-seven years one 
important paragraph was added, prohibiting slavery; and this 
change was made at a tremendous cost of blood. Otherwise the 
few amendments have been insignificant and concerned matters 
of expediency or else, and more specially, further formulations of 
what, according to American conceptions, are the rights of the in- 



22 THE AMERICANS 

dividual. Although the original Constitution did not contain a 
formal proclamation of religious freedom, freedom of speech, of 
the press, and of public assemblage, this was not because those 
who signed the document did not believe in these things, but be- 
cause they had not aimed to make of the Constitution of the Union 
either a treatise on ethics or yet a book of law. But as early as 
1789 the states insisted that all the rights of the individual, as 
endorsed by the national ideals, should be incorporated in the 
articles of this document. In the year 1870 one more tardy 
straggler was added to the list of human rights, the last amend- 
ment; the right of the citizens to vote was not to be abridged on 
account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude. 

Of the other amendments, the tenth had been tacitly assumed 
from the first year of the Republic; this was that "The powers 
not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor pro- 
hibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, 
or to the people." This principle also was surely in no way at 
variance with the spirit of the original document. It was, indeed, 
the lever that ensured the great efficacy of the Constitution, so that 
by its provisions the centrifugal forces were never disturbed by 
centripetal ones; an equilibrium was effected between the ten- 
dencies that made for unity and those that made against it, in 
such a way that the highest efficiency was ensured to the whole 
while the fullest encouragement was given to the enterprise and 
initiative of the parts. In no direction, probably, would an im- 
provement have been possible. More authority concentrated at 
the head would have impeded general activity, and less would 
have lost the advantages of concerted action; in neither case 
would material growth or the reconciliation of conflicting opinions 
have been possible. Constant compensation of old forces and 
the quickening of new ones were the secret of this documented 
power, and yet it was only the complete expression of the spirit 
of self-direction, which demands unremittingly that the nation as 
a whole shall conduct itself without encroaching on the freedom 
of the individual, and that the individual shall be free to go his 
own ways without interfering with the unfettered policy of the 
nation. 

Under the auspices of this Constitution the country waxed and 
throve. As early as 1803 its land area was doubled by the acces- 



SELF-DIRECTION 23 

sion of Louisiana, which had been ceded by Spain to France, and 
was now purchased from Napoleon for fifteen milHon dollars — an 
event of such far-reaching importance that the people of St. Louis 
have not inappropriately invited the nations of the earth to par- 
ticipate in a Louisiana Purchase Exposition. In 1845 Texas was 
taken into the Union, it having broken away from Mexico just 
previously and constituted itself an independent state. The large 
region on the Pacific slope known as Oregon came in 1846 to the 
United States by treaty with England, and when finally, in 1847, 
after the war with Mexico, New Mexico and California became 
the spoils of the victor and in 1867 Russia relinquished Alaska, 
the domain of the country was found to have grown from its 
original size of 324,000 square miles to one of 3,600,000. The 
thirteen states had become forty-five, since the newly acquired 
lands had to be divided. But all this growth brought no alteration 
in the Constitution, whose spirit of self-direction, rather, had led 
to this magnificent development, had fortified and secured the 
country, and inspired it with energy and contentment. The 
population also has grown under this benevolent Constitution. 
Millions have flocked hither to seek and to find prosperity on this 
new and inexhaustible soil. The area has increased ten-fold, but 
the population twenty-fold; and the new-comers have been dis- 
ciplined in the school of self-direction and educated to the spirit 
of American citizenship. 



There is a certain kind of character which must be developed 
in this school. It is true, of course, that there is no one model 
which just fits every one, the native-born Yankee as well as 
the European immigrant, the farmer as well as the resident in 
cities. The Irish-American is not the German-American, nor is 
the New Englander like the Virginian, nor the son of the East like 
his brother in the West. The infinite shadings of personal char- 
acter, temperament, and capacity which nature has produced, 
have, of course, not been lost. And, nevertheless, just as the human 
race in America has begun to differentiate into a species which is 
anthropologically distinct, and this partly under the influence of the 
climate since the species has several characters in common with the 
aboriginal Indian, so also in the moral atmosphere of this body- 



24 THE AMERICANS 

politic a distinct type of human character is undoubtedly being 
evolved; and one may note w^ith perpetual surprise how little 
the other great divisions of social life, as of rich and poor, culti- 
vated and ignorant, native-born and immigrant, manual labour- 
er and brain-worker — how little these differentiate the American 
citizen in his political capacity. Of course only the political life 
is in question here; that new groupings and divisions are being 
continually formed in the economic, intellectual, and social life 
need not concern us for the present. In the individual it may not 
be easy to follow the threads through the tissue of his psychic 
motions, but in the abstract and schematic picture of the type it 
is by no means impossible to trace them out. 

What is it, then, which the American has gotten from his train- 
ing } Many and apparently unrelated lessons are taught in the 
school of self-direction, and perhaps none of them are without 
their dangers. For it is here not a matter of theoretical knowl- 
edge, which may be remembered or forgotten and may be well or 
ill selected, but which in itself involves no scale of excellence and, 
therefore, has no need to be tempered or restrained. Theoretical 
knowledge cannot be overdone or exaggerated into untruth. But 
the practical conduct which is here in question is different; it in- 
volves an ideal, and in such a way that a man may not only mis- 
apprehend or forget what is the best course of action, but also he 
may err in following it, he may give it undue place and so neglect 
opposing motives which in their place are no less requisite. In 
short, conduct, unlike knowledge, demands a fine tact and un- 
flagging discernment for the fitness of things. In this sense it can- 
not be denied that the teaching of American democracy is itself 
the source of serious errors, and that the typical American citizen 
is by no means free from the failings of his virtues. His funda- 
mental traits may be briefly sketched, and from the excellencies 
which he strives for many of his defects can be understood. 

There is, firstly, a group of closely related impulses, which springs 
from the American's unbounded belief in his own strength, a trait 
which in the last analysis must be, of course, the foundation-stone 
of any doctrine of self-direction. He will not wait for others to 
look out for him, counsel him, or take cognizance of his interests, 
but relies wholly on his own judgment and his own strength, and 
believes no goal too high for his exertions to attain. Every true 



SELF-DIRECTION 25 

American will have found in himself some trace of this spirit- 
Each day of his life has suggested it to him, and all the institutions 
of his country have reinforced the teaching. Its most immediate 
result is such a strength of initiative as no other people on earth 
possesses, an optimism, a self-reliance and feeling of security 
which contribute more than half to his success. Faint heart is not 
in the American's dictionary. Individual, corporation, or coun- 
try may be undecided, and dispute whether a certain end is desir- 
able or whether a certain means is best to a given end, but no one 
ever doubts or goes into his work with misgivings lest his strength 
be not enough to traverse the road and reach the goal. And such 
an attitude encourages every man to exert himself to the utmost. 
The spirit of self-direction is here closely allied with that self- 
initiative which is the mainspring of the economic life of America. 
But the initiative and optimistic resolution shown in the political 
arena astonish the stranger more than the same traits displayed 
in the economic field. It is shown in the readiness for argument, 
in which every one can express himself accurately and effectively; 
in the indefatigable demand that every public office shall be 
open to the humblest incumbent, and in the cool assurance 
with which thousands and thousands of persons, without any 
technical knowledge or professional training, assume the most 
exacting political offices, and become postmasters, mayors, 
ministers and ambassadors, without even pausing before their 
grave responsibilities. But most of all, American initiative is 
shown in the structure of all her institutions, great or small, which 
minimizes transitions and degrees between higher and lower, and 
so facilitates the steady advance of the individual. Each and all 
must have the chance to unfold and there must be no obstacles to 
hinder the right ambition from its utmost realization. Every im- 
pulse must be utilized; and however far toward the periphery a 
man may be born he must have the right of pressing forward to 
the centre. The strength of this nation lies at the periphery, and 
the American government would never have advanced so unerr- 
ingly from success to success if every village stable-lad and city 
messenger-boy had not known with pride that it depends only on 
himself if he is not to become President of the United States. 

But the transition is easy and not well marked from such 
strength to a deplorable weakness. The spirit of initiative and 

I 



26 THE AMERICANS 

optimism is in danger of becoming inexcusable arrogance as to 
one's abilities and sad underestimation of the value of professional 
training. Dilettanteism is generally well-meaning, often success- 
ful, and sometimes wholly admirable; but it is always dangerous. 
When brawny young factory-hands sit on a school committee, 
sturdy tradesmen assume direction of a municipal postal service, 
bankers become speakers in legislature, and journalists shift over 
to be cabinet ministers, the general citizen may sometimes find 
cold comfort in knowing that the public service is not roped off 
from private life, nor like to become effete through stale traditions. 
It is very evident that America is to-day making a great effort to 
ward off the evils of amateurish incompetence and give more prom- 
inence to the man of special training. And yet it cannot be denied 
that very noticeably in the intellectual make-up of the American 
his free initiative and easy optimism are combined with a readiness 
to overestimate his own powers and with a bias for dilettanteism. 

Another psychological outcome of this individualism seems in- 
evitable. When every member of a nation feels called on to 
pass judgment on all subjects for himself, it will come about 
that public opinion reaches an uncommonly high mean level, but 
it will also happen that the greatest intellects are not recognized 
as being above this mean. The genius, who in his day is always 
incomprehensible to the masses, goes to waste; and the man who 
sees beyond the vulgar horizon fights an uphill battle. The glit- 
tering successes are for the man whose doings impress the multi- 
tude, and this fact is necessarily reflected in the mind of the aspir- 
ant, who unconsciously shapes his ambitions to the taste of the 
many rather than of the best. Wherever the spirit of initiative 
possesses all alike, a truly great individual is of course insufferable; 
any great advance must be a collective movement, and the best 
energies of the country must be futilely expended in budging the 
masses. It is no accident that America has still produced no great 
world genius. And this is the other side of the vaunted and truth- 
ful assertion, that whenever in a New England town a question is 
brought to an open debate, the number of those who will take a 
lively, earnest, orderly, and intelligent part in the discussion is 
perhaps greater in proportion to the total number of inhabitants 
than in any place in Europe. 

This leads us to a second consequence of the desire for self- 



SELF-DIRECTION 27 

direction. It stimulates not only initiative and self-reliance, but 
also the consciousness of duty. If a man earnestly believes that 
the subject must also be potentate, he will not try to put off his 
responsibilities on any one else but v^ill forthv^^ith set himself to 
wrork, and prescribe as w^ell his own due restrictions. If a neigh- 
bourhood or club, town, city, or state, or yet the whole federation 
sees before it some duty, the American will not be found waiting 
for a higher authority to stir him up, for he is himself that author- 
ity; his vote it is which determines all who are to figure in the affair. 
Wherefore he is constrained by the whole system to an earnest and 
untiring co-operation in everything. This is not the superficial 
politics of the ale-house, with its irresponsible bandying of yeas and 
nays. When Secretary of the Navy under McKinley, Mr. Long said 
that when the cabinet at Washington was in conference, every mem- 
ber was of course better posted on the matter than the average citi- 
zen; but that nevertheless a dozen villagers, say in northern Maine, 
would read their New York and Boston papers and talk over the 
affairs with as much intelligence and as good a comprehension of the 
points at issue as would appear at any cabinet debates. This was 
by no means meant as a reflection on his colleagues of the cabinet, 
but as a frank recognition of an aspect of American life which in- 
variably surprises the foreigner. One needs only to recall the dis- 
cussion which preceded the last presidential election, and more 
especially the one preceding that; the silver question was the great 
issue, and evening after evening hundreds of thousands listened 
to technical arguments in finance such as no European orator could 
hope to lay before a popular assembly. Huge audiences followed 
with rapt attention for hours lectures on the most difficult points 
of international monetary standards. And this intellectual seri- 
ousness springs from the feeling of personal responsibility which 
is everywhere present. The European is always astonished at the 
exemplary demeanour of an American crowd; how on public oc- 
casions great multitudes of men and women regulate their move- 
ments without any noticeable interference by the police, how the 
great transportation companies operate with almost no surveil- 
lance of the public, trusting each person to do his part, and how 
in general the whole social structure is based on mutual confidence 
to a degree which is nowhere the case in Europe. The feeling 
that the ruler and the ruled are one pervades all activities, and its 



28 THE AMERICANS 

consequences are felt far beyond the political realm. Especially 
in the social sphere it makes for self-respect among the lower 
classes; they adapt themselves readily to discipline, for at the 
same time they feel themselves to be the masters; and the dignity 
of their position is the best security for their good behaviour. 

But here, too, excellence has its defects. Where every one is so 
intensely aw^are of an identity betv^een political authority and po- 
litical subject, it is hard for the feeling of respect for any person 
v^hatsoever to find root. The feeling of equality v^ill crop out 
where nature designed none, as for instance between youth and 
mature years. A certain lack of respect appears in the family and 
goes unpunished because superficially it corresponds to the polit- 
ical system of the land. Parents even make it a principle to im- 
plore and persuade their children, holding it to be a mistake to 
compel or punish them; and they believe that the schools should 
be conducted in the same spirit. And thus young men and women 
grow up without experiencing the advantages of outer constraint 
or discipline. 

Hitherto we have considered only those intellectual factors de- 
rived from the spirit of self-direction which bear on the will of the 
individual, his rights and duties; but these factors are closely 
bound up with the others which concern the rights and privileges 
of one's neighbour. We may sketch these briefly. Deeply as he 
feels his own rights, the American is not less conscious of those of 
his neighbour. He does not forget that his neighbour may not 
be molested and must have every opportunity for development and 
the pursuit of his ambitions, and this without scrutiny or super- 
vision. He recognizes the other's equal voice and influence in 
public affairs, his equally sincere sense of duty and fidelity to it. 
This altruism expresses itself variously in practical life. Firstly, 
in a complete subordination to the majority. In America the 
dissenting minority displays remarkable discipline, and if the 
majority has formally taken action, one hears no grumbling or 
quibbling from the discontented, whether among boys at play or 
men who have everything at stake. The outvoiced minority is 
self-controlled and good-natured and ready at once to take part 
in the work which the majority has laid out; and herein lies one of 
the clearest results of the American system and one of the superior 
traits of American character. 



I 



SELF-DIRECTION zg 

Closely related to this is another trait which lends to American 
life much of its intrinsic worth — the unconditional insistence in 
any competition on equal rights for both sides. The demand for 
"fair play" dominates the whole American people, and shapes 
public opinion in all matters whether large or small. And with 
this, finally, goes the belief in the self-respect and integrity of one's 
neighbour. The American cannot understand how Europeans 
so often reinforce their statements with explicit mention of their 
honour which is at stake, as if the hearer is likely to feel a doubt 
about it; and even American children are often apt to wonder at 
young people abroad who quarrel at play and at once suspect one 
another of some unfairness. The American system does not wait 
for years of discretion to come before exerting its influence; it 
makes itself felt in the nursery, where already the word of one 
child is never doubted by his playmates. 

Here too, however, the brightest light will cast a shadow. 
Every intelligent American is somewhat sadly aware that the vote 
of a majority is no solution of a problem, and he realizes oftener 
than he will admit that faith in the majority is pure nonsense if 
theoretical principles are at issue. This is a system which com- 
pels him always where a genius is required to substitute a com- 
mittee, and to abide by the majority vote. The very theory of 
unlimited opportunity has its obvious dangers arising, here as 
everywhere, from extremes of feeling and so exaggeration of the 
principle. The recognition of another's rights leads naturally to 
a sympathy for the weaker, which is as often as not unjustified, 
and easily runs over into sentimentalism, not to say an actual 
hysteria of solicitude. And this is in fact a phase of public opin- 
ion which stands in striking contrast to the exuberant health of 
the nation. What is even worse, the ever-sensitive desire not to 
interfere in another's rights leads to the shutting of one's eyes and 
letting the other do what he likes, even if it is unjust. And in this 
way a situation is created which encourages the unscrupulous and 
rewards rascality. 

For a long time the blackest spot on American life, specially in 
the opinion of German critics, has been the corruption in muni- 
cipal and other politics. We need not now review the facts. It 
is enough to point out that a comparison with conditions in Ger- 
many, say, is entirely misleading if it is supposed to yield conclu- 



50 THE AMERICANS 

sions as to the moral character of the American people. Un- 
scrupulous persons who are keen for plunder, are to be found 
everywhere; merely the conditions under which the German pub- 
lic service has developed and now maintains itself make it almost 
impossible for a reprobate of that sort to force his entrance. And 
if a German official were discovered in dishonest practices it would 
be, in fact, discrediting to the people. In America the situation 
is almost reversed. The conditions on which, according to the 
American system, the lesser officials secure their positions, special- 
ly in municipal governments, and the many chances of enriching 
oneself unlawfully and yet without liability to arrest, while the 
regular remuneration and above all the social dignity of the posi- 
tions are relatively small, drive away the better elements of the 
population and draw on the inferior. The charge against the 
Americans, then, should not be that they make dishonest officials, 
but that they permit a system which allows dishonest persons to 
become officials. This is truly a serious reproach, yet it is not a 
charge of contemptible dishonesty but of inexcusable complacency; 
and this springs from the national weakness of leniency toward 
one's neighbour, a trait which comes near to being a fundamental 
democratic virtue. It cannot be denied, moreover, that the whole 
nation is earnestly and successfully working to overcome this 
difficulty. 

The denunciations of the daily papers, however, must not be 
taken as an indication of this, for the uncurbed American press 
makes the merest unfounded suspicion an occasion for sensational 
accusations. Any one who has compared in recent years the 
records of unquestionably impartial judicial processes with the 
charges which had previously been made in the papers, must be 
very sceptical as to the hue and cry of corruption. Even muni- 
cipal politics are much better than they are painted. The easiest 
way of overcoming every evil would be to remove the public ser- 
vice from popular and party influences, but this is, of course, not 
feasible since it would endanger the most cherished prerogatives 
of individualism. Besides, the American is comforted about his 
situation because he knows that just this direct efficiency of the 
people's will is the surest means of thoroughly uprooting the evil 
as soon as it becomes really threatening. He may be patient or 
indifferent too long, but if he is once aroused he finds in his 



SELF-DIRECTION 31 

system a strong and ready instrument for suddenly overturning 
an administration and putting another in its stead. Moreover, if 
corruption becomes too unblushing an "educational campaign" 
is always in order. James Bryce, who is of all Europeans the one 
most thoroughly acquainted with American party politics, gives his 
opinion, that the great mass of civil officials in the United States is 
no more corrupt than that of England or Germany. An Ameri- 
can would add, however, that they excel their European rivals 
in a better disposition and greater readiness to be of service. 

But the situation is complicated by still another tendency which 
makes the fight for clean and disinterested politics difficult. The 
spirit of self-direction involves a political philosophy which is 
based on the individual; and the whole commonwealth has no 
other meaning than an adding up of the rights of separate indi- 
viduals, so that every proposal must benefit some individual or 
other if it is to commend itself for adoption. Now since the state 
is a collection of numberless individuals and the law merely a 
pledge between them all, the honour of the state and the majesty 
of the law do not attach to a well organized and peculiarly exalted 
collective will, which stands above the individual. Such a thing 
would seem to an individualist a hollow abstraction, for state and 
law consist only in the rights and responsibilities of such as he. 
From this more or less explicitly formulated conception of polit- 
ical life there accrue to society both advantages and dangers. 
The advantages are obvious: the Mephistophelian saying, "Ver- 
nunft wird Unsinn, Wohltat Plage," becomes unthinkable, since 
the body-politic is continually tested and held in check by the 
lively interests of individuals. Any obvious injustice can be 
righted, for above the common weal stands the great army of 
individuals by whom and for whom both state and law were made. 

But the disadvantages follow as well. If state and law are only 
a mutual restraint agreed on between individuals, the feeling of 
restraint becomes lively in proportion as the particular individuals 
in question can be pointed to, but vanishingly weak when, in a 
mort mtangible way, the abstract totality requires allegiance. So 
one hnds the finest feeling for justice in cases of obligation to an 
individual, as in contracts, for instance, and the minimum sense of 
right where the duty is toward the state. There is no country of 
Europe where the sense of individual right so pervades all classes 



32 THE AMERICANS 

of the inhabitants, a fact which stands in no wise contradictory to 
the other prevalent tendency of esteeming too lightly one's right- 
eous obligations to city or state. Men who, in the interests of 
their corporations, try to influence in irregular ways the profession- 
al politicians in the legislatures, observe nevertheless in private 
life the most rigid principles of right; and many a one who could 
safely be trusted by the widows and orphans of his city with every 
cent which they own, would still be very apt to make a false 
declaration of his taxable property. 

There is a parallel case in the sphere of criminal law. Possibly 
even more than the abuses of American municipal politics, the 
crimes of lynch courts have brought down the condemnation of the 
civilized world. Corruption and "lynch justice" are usually 
thought of as the two blemishes on the nation, and it is from them 
that the casual observer in Europe gets a very unfavourable im- 
pression of the American conception of justice. We have already 
tried to rectify this estimate in so far as it includes corruption, and 
as regards lynching it is perhaps even more in error. Lynch 
violence is of course not to be excused. Crime is crime; and the 
social psychologist is interested only in deciding what rubric to 
put it under. Now the entire development of lynch action shows 
that it is not the wanton violence of men who have no sense of 
right, but rather the frenzied fulfillment of that which we have 
termed the individualistic conception of justice. The typical 
case of lynching is found, of course, in Southern States with a con- 
siderable negro population. A negro will have attempted violence 
on a white woman, whereon all the white men of the neighbour- 
hood, assuming that through the influence of his fellow negroes 
the criminal would not be duly convicted, or else feeling that the 
regular legal penalty would not suffice to deter others from the 
same crime, violently seize the culprit from out the jurisdiction of 
the law, and after a summary popular trial hang him. But these 
are not men who are merely seeking a victim to their brutal in- 
stinct for murder. It is reported that after the deed, when the 
horrid crime has been horribly expiated, the participants will 
quietly and almost solemnly shake one another by the hand and 
disperse peacefully to their homes, as if they had fulfilled a sacred 
obligation of citizenship. These are men imbued with the in- 
dividualistic notion of society, confident that law is not a thing 



SELF-DIRECTION 33 

whose validity extends beyond themselves, but something which 
they have freely framed and adopted, and which they both may 
and must annul or disregard as soon as the conditions which made 
it necessary are altered. It is a matter of course that such pre- 
sumption is abhorred and condemned in the more highly civilized 
states of the Union, also by the better classes in the Southern 
States; and a lyncher is legally a murderer. His deed, however, 
is not to be referred psychologically to a deficient sense of justice. 
That which is the foundation of this sense, resentment at an in- 
fringement of the individual's rights and belief in the connection 
between sin and expiation, are all too vividly realized in his soul. 

We have dwelt on these two offshoots of the individualistic idea 
of law because they have been used constantly to distort the true 
picture of American character. Rightly understood, psychologi- 
cally, these phenomena are seen to be black and ugly incidents, 
which have little to do with the national consciousness of right and 
honour; they are the regrettable accompaniments of an extreme 
individualism, which in its turn, to be sure, grows naturally out of 
the doctrine of self-direction. Every American knows that it is 
one of the most sacred duties of the land to fight against these 
abuses, and yet the foreigner should not be deceived into thinking, 
because so and so many negroes are informally disposed of each 
year, and the politicians of Philadelphia or Chicago continue to 
stuff their pockets with spoils in ways which are legally unpun- 
ishable, that the American is not thoroughly informed with a re- 
spect for law. He has not taken his instruction in the system of 
self-direction in vain. And the German who estimates the tone 
of political life in America by the corruption and lynch violence 
narrated in the daily papers, is like the American who makes up 
his opinion of the German army, as he sometimes does, from the 
harangues of social democrats on the abuses of military officers, or 
from sensational disclosures of small garrisons on the frontier. 

One more trait must be mentioned, finally, which is character- 
istic of every individualistic community, and which, having been 
impressed on the individual by the American system, has now re- 
acted and contributed much to the working out of this system. 
The American possesses an astonishing gift for rapid organiza- 
tion. His highest talents are primarily along this line, and in the 
same way every individual has an instinct for stationing himself 



34 THE AMERICANS 

at the right place in any organization. This is true both high and 
low, and can be observed on every occasion, whether in the con- 
certed action of labouring men, in a street accident, or in any sort 
of popular demonstration. For instance, one has only to notice 
how quickly and naturally the public forms in orderly procession 
before a ticket-office. This sure instinct for organization, which 
is such an admirable complement to the spirit of initiative, gives 
to the American workman his superiority over the European, 
for it is lamentably lacking in the latter, and can be replaced only 
by the strictest discipline. But this instinct finds its fullest ex- 
pression in the political sphere. It is this which creates parties, 
guarantees the efficiency of legislatures, preserves the discipline 
of the state, and is in general the most striking manifestation of the 
spirit of self-direction. But we have seen that none of the merits 
of this system are quite without their drawbacks, and this gift for 
organization has also its dangers. The political parties which it 
fosters may become political "machines," and the party leader a 
"boss" — but here we are already in the midst of those political 
institutions with which we must deal more in detail. 



CHAPTER TWO 

Political Parties 

THE Presidency is the highest peak in the diversified range of 
poHtical institutions, and may well be the first to occupy our 
attention. But this chief executive office may be looked at in 
several relations: firstly, it is one of the three divisions of the Gov- 
ernment, which are the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. 
And these might well be considered in this order. But, on the 
other hand, the President stands at the head of the federation of 
states; and the structural beauty of the American political edifice 
consists in the repetition of the whole in each part and of the part 
in every smaller part, and so on down. The top governmental strat- 
um of the federation is repeated on a smaller scale at the head of 
each of the forty-five states, and again, still smaller, over every city. 
The governor of a state has in narrower limits the functions of the 
President, and so, within still narrower, has the mayor of a city. 
We might, then, consider the highest office, and after that its 
smaller counterparts in the order of their importance. 

But neither of these methods of treatment would bring out the 
most important connection. It is possible to understand the 
President apart from the miniature presidents of the separate 
states, or apart from the Supreme Court, or even Congress, but it 
is not possible to understand the President without taking account 
of the political parties. It is the party which selects its candidate, 
elects him to office, and expects from him in return party support 
and party politics. The same is true, moreover, of elections to 
Congress and to the state legislatures. For here again the party 
is the background to which everything is naturally referred, and 
any description of the President, or Congress, or the courts, which, 
like the original Constitution, makes no mention of the parties, 
appears to us to-day as lacking in plastic reality, in historical per- 



36 THE AMERICANS 

spective. We shall, therefore, attempt no such artificial analysis, 
but rather describe together the constitutional government and the 
inofficial party formations. They imply and explain each other. 
Then on this background of party activities we can view more 
comprehensively the President, Congress, the Supreme Court, and 
the entire politics of the federation and the states. 

We must not forget, however, that in separating any of these 
factors from the rest, we deal at once with highly artificial abstrac- 
tions, so that this description will have continually to neglect many 
facts and cut the threads that cross its path. The history of the 
American Presidency shows at all times its close connection with 
other institutions. A treaty or even a nomination by the Presi- 
dent requires the ratification of the Senate before it is valid; and 
on the other side, the President can veto any bill of Congress. 
Even the Supreme Court and the President can hardly be con- 
sidered apart, as was seen, for instance, in the time of Cleveland, 
when his fiscal policy took final shape in an income tax which the 
Supreme Court declared unconstitutional, and therefore unlawful; 
or again when the colonial policy of McKinley was upheld and 
validated by a decision of the same court. Again, the party poli- 
tics of state and town are no less intimately related to the federal 
government and the Presidency. Here, too, the leadings are in 
both directions; local politics condition the national, and these in 
turn dominate the local. Cleveland was a man who had never 
played a part in national politics until he became the executive 
head of the nation. As Mayor of Buffalo he had been so con- 
spicuous throughout the State of New York as to be elected Gov- 
ernor of that state, and then in the state politics so won the con- 
fidence of his party as to be nominated and elected to the highest 
national office. McKinley, on the other hand, although he, too, 
had been the Governor of a state, nevertheless gained the confi- 
dence of his party during his long term of service in Congress. 

Similarly it may be said that local politics are the natural path 
which leads to any national position, whether that of senator or 
representative. And inversely the great federal problems play an 
often decisive role in the politics of the states with which they 
strictly have no connection. Federal party lines divide legisla- 
tures from the largest to the smallest, and even figure in the muni- 
cipal elections. Unreasonable as it may seem, it is a fact that the 



POLITICAL PARTIES 57 

great national questions, such as expansion, free trade, and the 
gold standard, divide the voters of a small village into opposing 
groups when they have to elect merely some one to the police or 
street-cleaning department. It is, therefore, never a question of 
a mechanical co-ordination and independence of parts, but of an 
organic interdependence, and every least district of the Union is 
thoroughly en rapport with the central government and doings of 
the national parties. 

There are political parties in every country, but none like the 
American parties. The English system presents the nearest 
analogy, with its two great parties, but the similarity is merely 
superficial and extends to no essential points. Even in the com- 
parison between America and Germany it is not the greater num- 
ber of the German parties that makes the real difference. For 
the German his party is in the narrower sense a group of legisla- 
tors, or, more broadly, these legislators together with the general 
body of their constituents. The party has in a way concrete 
reality only in the act of voting and the representation in parlia- 
ment of certain principles. Of course, even in Germany there 
exists some organization between the multitude of voters and the 
small group which they return to the Reichstag. Party directors, 
who are for the most part the representatives themselves, central 
committees and local directors, local clubs and assemblies are all 
necessary to stir up the voters and to attend to various formalities 
of the election; but no one has dreamt of a horde of professional 
politicians who are not legislators, of party leaders who are more 
powerful than the representative to be elected, or of parties 
which are stronger than either the parliament or the people. 
The American party is first of all a closely knit organization with 
extensive machinery and rigid discipline; to be represented in 
Congress or legislature is only one of its many objects. 

This situation is, however, no accident. One may easily under- 
stand the incomparable machinery and irresistible might of the 
parties, if one but realizes a few of the essential factors in Ameri- 
can party life. First, of course, comes the tremendous extent of 
the field in which the citizens' ballots have the decision. If it were 
as it is in the German elections to the imperial diet, the Amer- 
ican party organization would never have become what it is. 
But besides the elections to Congress, the state legislatures and local 



38 THE AMERICANS 

assemblies, there is the direct choice to be made for President, 
vice-president, governor, the principal state officials and deputies, 
judges of the appellate court, mayor and city officials, and many 
others. The entire responsibility falls on the voters, since the 
doctrine of self-direction ordains that only citizens of the state shall 
vote for state officials, and of the city for city officers. The gov- 
ernor, unlike an "Oberprasident," is not appointed by the Govern- 
ment, nor a mayor by any authority outside his city. The voter is 
nowhere to be politically disburdened of responsibility. But, 
with the direct suffrage, his sphere of action is only begun. Al- 
most every one of the men he elects has in turn to make further 
appointments and choices. The members of a state legislature 
elect senators to Congress, and both governor and mayor name 
many officials, but most of all, the President has to give out offices 
from ambassadors and ministers down to village postmasters and 
light-house keepers, in all of which there is ample chance to put 
the adherents of one's party in influential positions. Thus the 
functions of the American voter are incomparably more important 
and far-reaching than those of the German voter. 

But even with this, the political duties of the American citizen 
in connection with his party are not exhausted. The spirit of 
self-direction demands the carrying out of a principle which is un- 
known to the German politician. The choice and nomination 
of a candidate for election must be made by the same voting pub- 
lic; it must be carried on by the same parliamentary methods, and 
decided strictly by a majority vote. There are in theory no com- 
mittees or head officials to relieve the voting public of responsi- 
bility, by themselves benignly apportioning the various offices 
among the candidates. A party may propose but one candidate 
for each office, whereas there will often be several men within the 
party who wish to be candidates for the same office, as for instance, 
that of mayor, city counsellor, or treasurer. In every case the 
members of a party have to select the official nominee of their 
party by casting ballots, and thus it may happen that the contest 
between groups within the party may be livelier than the ultimate 
battle between the parties. 

Now on a large scale such transactions can be no longer carried 
on directly. All the citizens of the state cannot come together to 
nominate the party candidate for governor. For this purpose, 



I 



POLITICAL PARTIES 5P 

therefore, electors have to be chosen, every one by a strict majority 
vote, and these meet to fix finally on the candidates of the party. 
And when it comes to the President of the whole country, the vot- 
ing public elects a congress of electors, and these in turn choose 
other electors, and this twice-sifted body of delegates meets in 
national convention to name the candidate whom the party will 
support in the final, popular elections. Through such a strict 
programme for nominations the duties of the voters towards their 
party are just doubled, and it becomes an art considerably beyond 
the ability of the average citizen to move through this regressive 
chain of elections without losing his way. It requires, in short, 
an established and well articulated organization to arrange and 
conduct the popular convocations, to deliberate carefully on the 
candidates to be proposed for nomination, and to carry the in- 
finitely complicated and yet unavoidable operations through to 
their conclusion. 

Finally, another factor enters in, which is once more quite for-* 
eign to the political life of Germany. Every American election is 
strictly local, in the sense that the candidate is invariably chosen 
from among the voters. In Germany, when a provincial city is 
about to send a representative to the Reichstag, the party in power ' 
accounts it a specially favourable circumstance if the candidates 
are not men of that very city, to suffer the proverbial dishonour 
of prophets in their own country, and prefers to see on the ballot 
the names of great party leaders from some other part of the em- 
pire. And when Berlin, for example, selects a mayor, the city is 
glad to call him from Breslau or Konigsberg. This is inconceiv- 
able to the American. It is a corollary to the doctrine of self- 
determination that whenever a political district, whether village or 
city, selects a representative, the citizens shall not only nommate 
and elect their candidate, but that they shall also choose him from 
their own midst. But this makes it at once necessary for the 
party to have its organized branches in every nook and corner of 
the country. A single central organization graciously to provide 
candidates for the whole land is not to be thought of. The party 
organization must be everywhere efficient, and quick to select and 
weigh for the purposes of the party such material as is at hand. 
It is obvious that this is a very intricate and exacting task, and that 
if the organization were sentimental, loose, or undisciplined, it 



40 THE AMERICANS 

would go to pieces by reason of the personal and other opposing 
interests which exist within it. And if it were less widely branched 
or less machine-like in its intricate workings, it would not be able 
to do its daily work, pick candidates for posts of responsibility, 
nominate electors, and elect its nominees; and eventually it would 
sink out of sight. The American political party is thus an essen- 
tially complete and independent organization. 

Two evils are necessarily occasioned by this invulnerable or- 
ganization of party activities, both of which are peculiar and of 
such undoubtedly bad consequences as to strike the most super- 
ficial observer, and specially the foreigner; and yet both of which 
on closer view are seen to be much less serious than one might have 
supposed at first. After a party has grown up and become well 
organized in its purpose of representing these or those political 
principles and of defending and propagating them, it may at 
length cease to be only the means to an end, and become an end 
unto itself. There is the danger that it will come to look on its 
duties as being nothing else than to keep itself in power, even by 
denying or opposing the principles with which it has grown up. 
Moreover, such an organization exacts a colossal amount of labour 
which must be rewarded in some form or other; and so it will find 
it expedient, quite apart from the political ideals of the party, to 
exert its influence in the patronage of state and other offices. The 
result is that the rewards and honours conferred necessarily draw 
men into the service of the party who care less for its ideals than 
for the emoluments they are to derive. And thus two evils spring 
up together; firstly, the parties lose their principles, and, secondly, 
take into their service professional politicians who have no prin- 
ciples to lose. We must consider both matters more in detail, the 
party ideals and the politicians. 

America has two great parties, the Republican, which is just 
now in power, and the Democratic. Other parties, as, for instance, 
the Populist, are small, and while they may for a while secure a 
meagre representation in Congress, they are too insignificant to 
have any chance of success in the presidential elections: although, 
to be sure, this does not prevent various groups of over-enthusias- 
tic persons from seizing the politically unfitting and impracticable 
occasion to set up their own presidential candidate as a sort of 
figure-head. Any political amateur, who finds no place in the 



POLITICAL PARTIES 41 

official parties, may gather a few friends under his banner and 
start a new, independent party; but the bubble bursts in a few 
days. And even if it is a person like Admiral Dewey, whose party 
banner is the flag under which he has sent an enemy's fleet to the 
bottom, he will succeed only in being amusing. The regular, or- 
ganized parties are the only ones which seriously count in politics. 
It sometimes happens, however, that a few months before the 
elections a small band of politically or industrially influential men 
will meet to consider the project of a third party, while their real 
aim is to create a little organization whose voting power will be 
coveted by both of the great parties. In this way the founders 
plan to force one or both of these to make concessions to the prin- 
ciples of their little group, since the most important feature is 
that Republicans and Democrats are so nearly equally balanced 
that only a slight force is needed to turn the scales to either side. 
In recent elections McKinley and Cleveland have each been elect- 
ed twice to the Presidency, and no one can say whether the next 
presidential majority will be Republican or Democrat. On 
Cleveland's second election the Democrats had 5,556,918, and the 
Republicans 5,176,108 votes, while the Populists made a showing 
of one million votes. But four years later the tables were turned, 
and McKinley won on 7,106,199 votes, while Bryan lost on 6,502,- 
685. It is clear, therefore, that neither of the parties has to fear 
that a third party will elect its candidate; nor can either rest on old 
laurels, for any remission of efi^ort is a certain victory for the other 
side. A third party is dangerous only in so far as it is likely to 
split up one of the two parties and so weaken it in an otherwise 
almost equal competition. 

What, now, are the principles and aims of the Republican and 
Democratic parties ^ Their names are not significant, since 
neither do the Republicans wish to do away with American de- 
mocracy, nor do the Democrats have any designs on the republi- 
can form of government. At the opening of the nineteenth cen- 
tury the present Democrats were called "Democratic-Repub- 
licans," and this long abandoned name could just as well be given 
to all surviving parties. Neither aristocracy nor monarchy nor 
anarchy nor plutocracy has ever so far appeared on a party 
programme, and however hotly the battle may be waged between 
Republicans and Democrats, it is forever certain that both op- 



^2 THE AMERICANS 

ponents are at once Democrats and Republicans. Wherein, then, 
do they diflPer ? 

The true party politician of America does not philosophize over- 
much about the parties; it is enough for him that one party has 
taken or is likely to take this, and the other party that position on 
the living questions, and beyond this his interest is absorbed by 
special problems. He is reluctant enough when it comes to taking 
up the nicer question of deducing logically from the general prin- 
ciples of a party what attitude it ought to take on this or that 
special issue. The nearest he would come to this would be con- 
versely to point out that the attitude of his opponents directly re- 
futes their party's most sacred doctrines. Those who philoso- 
phize are mostly outsiders, either sojourners in the country, or 
indigenous critics who are considerably more alive to the unavoid- 
able evils of party politics than to the merits. From such oppo- 
nents of parties as well as from foreigners, one hears again and 
again that the parties do not really stand for any general principles 
at the present time, that their separate existence has lost whatever 
political significance it may have had, and that to-day they are 
merely two organizations preserving a semblance of individuality 
and taking such attitude toward the issues of the day as is likely 
to secure the largest number of votes, in order to distribute among 
their members the fruits of victory. The present parties, say 
these critics, were formed in that struggle of intellectual forces 
which took place during the third quarter of the last century; it 
was the dispute over slavery which led to the Civil War. The 
Republican party was the party of the Northern States in their 
anti-slavery zeal; the Democratic was the party of the slave-hold- 
ing Southern States; and the opposition had political significance 
as long as the effects of the war lasted, and it was necessary to 
work for the conciliation and renewed participation of the de- 
feated Confederacy. But all this is long past. Harrison, Cleve- 
land, Blaine, Bryan, McKinley, and Roosevelt became the stand- 
ard-bearers of their respective parties long after the wounds of the 
war had healed. And it is no outcome from the original, dis- 
tinguishing principles of the parties, if the slave-holding party 
takes the side of free-trade, silver currency and anti-imperialism, 
while the anti-slavery elements stay together in behalf of the gold 
standard, protection, and expansion. 



POLITICAL PARTIES 43 

It looks, rather, as if the doctrines had migrated each to the 
other's habitat. The party which was against slavery was support- 
ing the rights of the individual; how comes it, then, to be bitterly 
opposing the freedom of trade ? And how do the friends of slavery 
happen to champion the cause of free-trade, or, more remarkably, 
to oppose so passionately to-day the oppression of the people of 
the Philippines ? And what have these questions to do with 
the monetary standard ? It looks as if the organization had 
become a body without a soul. Each party tries to keep the 
dignity of its historic traditions and at every new juncture bobs 
and ducks before the interests and prejudices of its habitual 
clientele, while it seeks to outwit the opposite party by popular 
agitation against persistent wrongs and abuses or by new 
campaign catch-words and other devices. But there is no further 
thought of consistently standing by any fundamental principles. 
This hap-hazard propping up of the party programme is evinced 
by the fact that either party is divided on almost every question, 
and the preference of the majority becomes the policy of the 
party only through the strict discipline and suppression of the 
minority. The Republicans won in their campaign for im- 
perialism, and yet no anti-imperialist raised his voice more loudly 
than the Republican Senator Hoar. The Democrats acclaimed 
the silver schemes of Bryan, but the Gold Democrats num- 
bered on their side really all the best men of the party. Again, 
on other important issues both parties will adopt the same plat- 
form as soon as they see that the masses are bound to vote that 
way. Thus neither party will openly come out for trusts, but 
both parties boast of deprecating them; and both profess like- 
wise to uphold civil-service reform. This is so much the case that 
it has often been observed that within a wide range the pro- 
grammes of the two parties in no way conflict. One party ex- 
tols that which the other has never opposed, and the semblance 
of a difference is kept up only by such insistent vociferation of the 
policy as implies some sly and powerful gainsayer. And then 
with the same histrionic rage comes the other party and pounces 
on some scandal which the first had never thought of sanctioning. 
In short, there are no parties to-day but the powerful election or- 
ganizations which have no other end in view than to come into 
power at whatever cost. It should seem better wholly to give up 



44 THE AMERICANS 

the out-lived issues, and to have only independent candidates w^ho, 
w^ithout regard to party pressure, would be grouped according to 
their attitude on the chief problems of the day. 

And yet, after the worst has thus been said, we find ourselves 
still far removed from the facts. Each separate charge may be 
true, but the whole be false and misleading: even although many 
a party adherent admits the justness of the characterization, and 
declares that the party must decide every case "on its merits," 
and that to hold to principles is inexpedient in politics. For the 
principles exist, nevertheless, and have existed, and they dominate 
mightily the great to and fro of party movements. Just as there 
have always been persons who pretend to deduce the entire his- 
toiy of Europe from petty court intrigues and jealousies of the 
ante-room or the boudoir, so there will always be wise-heads in 
America to see through party doings, and deduce everything from 
the speculative manipulations of a couple of banking houses or the 
private schemes of a sugar magnate or a silver king. Such ex- 
planations never go begging for a credulous public, since mankind 
has a deep-rooted craving to see lowness put on exhibition. No 
man is a hero, it is said, in the eyes of his valet. Nations, too, have 
their valets; and with them, too, the fact is not that there are no 
heroes, but that a valet can see only with the eyes of a valet. 

It is true that the party lines of to-day have developed from the 
conflicting motives of the Civil War. But the fundamental error 
which prevents all insight into the deeper connections, lies in sup- 
posing that the anti-slavery party was first inspired by the indi- 
vidual fate of the negro, or in general the freedom of the individual. 
We must recall some of the facts of history. The question of 
slavery did not make its first appearance in the year i860, when the 
Republican party became important. The contrast between the 
plantation owners of the South, to whom slave labour was appar- 
ently indispensable, and the industry and trade of the North, 
which had no need of slaves, had existed from the beginning of the 
century and was in itself no reason for the formation of political 
parties. It was mainly an economic question which, together with 
many other factors, led to a far-reaching opposition between the 
New England States and the South, an opposition which was 
strengthened, to be sure, by the moral scruples of the Puritanical 
North. But the earlier parties were not marked off by degrees of 



POLITICAL PARTIES 45 

latitude, and furthermore the Southerner was by no means lack- 
ing in personal sympathy for the negro. The question first came 
into poHtics indirectly. It was in those years when the Union was 
pushing out into the West, taking in new territories and then mak- 
ing them into states by act of Congress, according to the provi- 
sions of the Constitution. In 1819 the question came up of ad- 
mitting Missouri to the Union, and now for the first time Congress 
faced the problem as to whether slavery should be allowed in a 
new state. The South wished it and the North opposed it. Con- 
gress finally decided that Missouri should be a slave state, but that 
in the future slavery should be forbidden north of a certain geo- 
graphical line. Thus slavery came to be recognized as a question 
within the jurisdiction of the federal Congress. Wherewith, if 
Congress should vote against slavery by a sufficient majority, it 
could forbid the practice in all the Southern states. And this 
would mean their ruin. 

It came thus to be for the interest of the Southern states, which 
at that time had a majority, to see to it that for every free state 
admitted to the Union there should be at least one new slave state; 
this in order to hold their majority in Congress. Now it happened 
at that time that the territories which, by reason of their population, 
would have next to be admitted, lay all north of the appointed 
boundary and would, therefore, be free states. Therefore the 
slave-holders promulgated the theory that Congress had exceeded 
its jurisdiction and interfered with the rights of the individual 
states. The matter was brought before the Supreme Court, and 
in 1857 a verdict was given which upheld the new theory. Thus 
Congress, that is, the Union as a whole, could not forbid slavery in 
any place, but must leave the matter for each state to decide. 
Herewith an important political issue was created, and a part of 
the country stood out for the rights of the Union, a part for those 
of the individual states. The group of men who at that time fore- 
saw that the whole Union was threatened, if so far-reaching rights 
were to be conceded to the states, was the Republican party. It 
rose up defiantly for the might and right of the federation, and 
would not permit one of the most important social and economic 
questions to be taken out of the hands of the central government 
and left to local choice. It was, of course, not a matter of chance 
that slavery became the occasion of dispute, but the real question 



4.6 THE AMERICANS 

at issue was the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. The 
federal party won, under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln. His 
election was the signal for the slave states to secede, South Caro- 
lina being the first. In February, 1861, these states formed a Con- 
federation, and the Union was formally cleft. In his inaugural 
speech of the following March, Lincoln firmly declared that the 
Union must be preserved at all cost. The Civil War began in 
April, 'and after fearful fighting the secessionists were returned to 
the Union, all slaves were freed, and the Southern states were re- 
constructed after the ideas of the Republican party. The oppos- 
ing party, the Democratic, was the party of decentralization. Its 
programme was the freedom of the individual state but not the 
servitude of the individual man. 

When one understands in this way the difference between the 
two parties, one sees that the Republicans were not for freedom 
nor the Democrats for slavery, but the Republicans were for a 
more complete subordination of the states to the federation and 
the Democrats were for the converse. This is a very different point 
of view, and from it very much which seems incompatible with 
the attitude of the two parties toward the question of slavery may 
now be seen as a necessary historical consequence. 

If we cast a glance at foregoing decades, we see that ever 
since the early days of the republic there has been hardly a time 
when these two forces, the centralizing and the decentralizing, 
have not been in play. It has lain deep in the nature of Teu- 
tonic peoples to pull apart from one another, while at the same 
time the struggle for existence has forced them to strong and well 
unified organization, so that scarcely a single Teutonic people 
has been spared that same opposition of social forces which is 
found in America. The origin of the Constitution itself can be 
understood only with reference to these antagonistic tendencies. 
The country wanted to be free of the miserable uncertainty, the 
internal discord and outward weakness which followed the Dec- 
laration of Independence; it wanted the strength of unity. And 
yet every single state guarded jealously its own rights, suspected 
every other state, and wished to be ensured against any encroach- 
ment of the federal power. And so the Constitution was drawn 
up with special precautions ensuring the equilibrium of power. 
At once, in Washington's cabinet, both tendencies were distinctly 



POLITICAL PARTIES 47 

and notably represented. There sat the distinguished Hamilton, 
the minister of finance and framer of the Constitution, who was a 
tireless champion of the federal spirit, and beside him sat Jefferson, 
the minister of state, who would have preferred to have the federa- 
tion transact nothing but foreign affairs and who believed in gen- 
eral the less the legislation the better for the people. The ad- 
herents of Hamilton's policy formed the federalist party, while 
Jefferson's supporters were called the Democratic Republicans. 
The names have changed and the special issues have altered with 
the progress of events; indeed, apparently the centralist party has 
gone twice out of existence, yet it was actually this party of which 
Lincoln became the leader. Jefferson's party, on the other hand, 
in spite of its change of name, has never as an organization 
ceased to exist. The Democrats who, in i860, wished to submit 
the question of slavery to the individual states, were the immediate 
heirs of the anti-federalists who had elected their first president in 
1800. 

Now if the centralizing and decentralizing character of the two 
parties is borne in mind, their further development down to the 
present day can be understood. This development seems discon- 
nected and contradictory only when the slavery question is thought 
to be the main feature and the Republicans are accounted the 
champions of freedom and the Democrats of slavery. Even 
Bryce, who has furnished by far the best account of the American 
party system, underestimates somewhat the inner continuity of the 
parties. Even he believes that the chief mission of the Republican 
party has been to do away with slavery and to reconstruct the 
Southern states, and that since this end was accomplished as far 
back as in the seventies, new parties ought naturally to have been 
formed by this time. Although the old organizations have in 
fact persisted, a certain vagueness and lack of vitality can be 
detected, he says, in both parties. According to that conception, 
however, it would be incomprehensible why those who formerly 
went forth to put an end to slavery now advance to bring the 
Filipinos into subjection, and to detain the poor man from pur- 
chasing his necessities where they are the cheapest. 

As we have seen, the Democrats were the party which was true 
to the Jeffersonian principles, and in opposition to the supporters 
of congressional authority defended the rights and free play of the 



48 THE AMERICANS 

individual states. And the Republicans were those who wished to 
exalt beyond any other the authority of the Federal Government. 
This is the key to everything which has since come to pass. At 
the last presidential elections there were three great party issues — 
the tariff, the currency, and the question of expansion. In decid- 
ing on all three of these points, the parties have conformed to their 
old principles. Free-trade versus protective tariff was not a new 
bone of contention. Jefferson's party had urged free-trade with 
all the nations of the earth at the very beginning of the century, 
and, of course, a decentralizing party which likes as little super- 
vision and paternalism as possible, will always concede to the 
individual his right to buy what he requires where it will cost the 
least. The Democrats did not oppose a tariff for revenue, to 
help defray the public expenses, but they objected on principle 
to that further tariff which was laid on goods in order to keep the 
prices of them high and so to protect home industries. The cen- 
tralists, that is, the whigs or the Republicans, on the contrary, by 
their supreme confidence in the one national government, had 
early been led to expect from it a certain protection of the national 
market and some regulation of the economic struggle for existence. 
And protective tariff was one of the main planks in their platform 
early in the century. 

It is clear, once more, that the anti-centralists had a direct and 
natural interest in the small man, his economic weaknesses and 
burdens; every member of society must have equal right and op- 
portunity to work out his career. It does not contradict this that 
the Democrats believed in slavery. In the Southern states the 
negro had come in the course of generations to be looked on as 
property, as a possession to be held and utilized in a special way, 
and any feeling of personal responsibility was of a patriarchal 
and not a political nature. The peculiarly democratic element 
in the position taken was the demand that the slavery question 
be left with the separate states to decide. As soon as fellow 
citizens were concerned, the anti-centralist party held true to 
its principles of looking out for the members on the periphery 
of society. In this way the party favoured the progressive in- 
come tax, and has always espoused any cause which would assist 
the working-man against the superior force of protected capital, 
or the farmer against the machinations of the stock market. 



POLITICAL PARTIES 4.9 

The exaggerated notions as to the silver standard of currency 
originated outside of the Democratic party, and have intrinsically 
nothing to do with democracy. But as soon as a considerable 
part of the people from one cause or another began really to 
believe that nothing but a silver currency could relieve the con- 
dition of the artisans and farmers, it became logically necessary 
for the party which opposed centralization to adopt and foster this 
panacea, however senseless it might seem to the more thoughtful 
elements within the party. And it was no less necessary for the 
party which upholds federal authority to oppose unconditionally 
anything which would endanger the coinage and credit of the coun- 
try. The gold standard is specifically a Republican doctrine only 
when it is understood to repudiate and oppose all risky experi- 
menting with bi-metallism. 

In the new imperialistic movement, on the other hand, it was 
the Democrats who were put on the defensive. Any one who leans 
toward individualism must instinctively lean away from milita- 
rism, which makes for strength at the centre; from aggressive 
movements to annex new lands, whereby the owners are deprived 
of their natural rights to manage their own afi^airs, and from any 
meddling with international politics, for this involves necessarily 
increased discretionary powers for the central government. It is 
not that the Democrats care less for the greatness of their father- 
land, but they despise that jingo patriotism which abandons the 
traditions of the country by bringing foreign peoples into subjec- 
tion. It is left for the centralists to meet the new situation square- 
ly, undertake new responsibilities, and convince the nation that it 
is strong and mature enough now to play a decisive role in the 
politics of the world. And thus the two great parties are by no 
manner of means two rudderless derelicts carried hither and 
thither by the currents ever since the Civil War, but, rather, great 
three-deckers following without swerve their appointed courses. 

The parties have sometimes been distinguished as conservative 
and liberal, but this is rather a reminiscence of conditions in Eu- 
rope. Both of the parties are really conservative, as results 
from both the American character and the nature of the party 
organization. Even in the most radical Democratic gathering 
the great appeal is never made in behalf of some advantageous 
or brilliant innovation but on the grounds of adherence to 



50 THE AMERICANS 

the old, reliable, and well-nigh sacred party principles. If 
either party is at present departing from the traditions of the 
past, it is the Republican party, which has always figured as 
the more conservative of the two. Yet such a distinction is 
partly true, since the centralists in conformity to their principles 
must specially maintain the Federal authority and precedent, 
while the Democratic party is more naturally inclined to give ear 
to discontented spirits, clever innovators, and fantastic reformers, 
lest some decentralizing energy should be suppressed. So the Re- 
publican party gains a fundamental and cheerful complacence 
with the prevailing order of things, while the Democratic party, 
even when it is in power, can never come quite to rest. The con- 
trast is not that between rich and poor; the Democratic party has 
its quota of millionaires, and the Republican has, for instance, in 
its negro clientage many of the poorest in the land. But the Re- 
publican party is filled with self-satisfaction and the conscious- 
ness of power and success, while the Democrats are forever meas- 
uring the actual according to an ideal which can never be realized. 
Like all centralists, the Republicans are essentially opportunists 
and matter-of-fact politicians; and the Democrats, like all anti- 
centralists, are idealists and enthusiasts. It has been well said 
that a Democratic committee is conducted like a debating club, but 
a Republican like a meeting of the stockholders in a corporation. 
These facts clearly hint at a certain personal factor which in- 
fluences the citizen's allegiance to one or other of the parties. In 
meeting a man on a journey one has very soon the impression, 
though one may often be mistaken, as to what party he belongs to, 
although he may not have spoken a word about politics. But 
more distinctive than the personal bias are the groupings by classes 
and regions which have come about during the course of time. 
In the North and West the Republicans have the majority 
among the educated classes, but in the South the educated 
people are Democrats, particularly since the negro population 
there holds to the old abolition party, so that the whites are the 
more ready to be on the other side. The lower classes are moved 
by the most diverse motives; the farmer is inclined to be Repub- 
lican and the artisan of the cities Democratic; Protestants are 
more often Republicans and Catholics Democrats, a partition 
which began with the early identification of the Puritan clergy of 



POLITICAL PARTIES 51 

New England with the RepubHcan party. This resulted in an 
affiliation of Catholicism and Democracy which has had very im- 
portant consequences, particularly in municipal politics; the 
Irish, who are invariably Catholics, vote with the Democratic 
party. The Germans and Swedes, specially in the West, are 
mostly Republicans. In these ways the most complicated com- 
binations have come about, particularly in the Middle West, 
where many of the larger states are always uncertain at election 
time. In the elections of the State of New York, the Democrats 
and Republicans have been alternately successful. Very often 
the capital city votes differently from the rural districts, as in Mas- 
sachusetts, which is a stalwart Republican state, although Boston, 
owing to the Irish population, is Democratic. 



These considerations as to the groupings of the party adherents 
bring us directly to our second question — who are the party 
politicians ^ We have aimed to refute the assertion that the par- 
ties are without their principles, but there is the further assertion 
that the politicians are without principles. In asking whether 
politics are really in the hands of unscrupulous men, one should 
first ascertain whether there are any honourable motives which 
would lead a man to devote himself thereto. And it appears 
that nowhere else are there such powerful inducements for a 
conscientious man to go into politics. First of all there is the 
best possible motive, the wish to see one's country governed ac- 
cording to one's own ideas of justice and progress, and the desire 
to work in this way for the honour, security, and welfare of the 
nation. Any one who has witnessed the American presidential 
elections once or twice will be convinced that the overwhelming 
majority of voters casts its votes in a truly ethical spirit, although, 
of course, the moral feeling is now more, now less, profound. At 
times when technical matters are chiefly the order of the day, or at 
best matters of expediency, enthusiasm for a party victory has to 
be kept up in other ways; but when it comes to questions of the 
national solidarity and honour, or of justice and freedom, then 
really high ethical enthusiasm holds place before all other polit- 
ical motives. In fact, the keen party spirit of the American is 
rather in danger of making him feel a virtuous indignation against 



52 THE AMERICANS 

the opposing party, even in regard to purely technical issues, as if 
it had fallen into mere frivolity or been criminally irresponsible. 
And in this way the American is never at a loss for a moral stream 
of some sort to keep the political mill-wheel turning. 

After patriotic enthusiasm come the economic and social motives 
which even the most high-flown idealist would not designate as 
corrupt. It is not only just, but it is actually the ideal of politics 
that every portion of the population, every class and calling, as 
well as every geographical section, should see its peculiar interests 
brought up for political debate. It is possible for an equilibrium 
of all existing forces to be reached only when all elements alike are 
aware of their chance to assert themselves. Nothing could be 
gained if agriculture were to become political sponsor for the in- 
dustrial interests, or if industry were to assume the care and pro- 
tection of agriculture. A due and proper emphasis by the respect- 
ive interests of their own needs will always be an honourable and, 
for the public welfare, useful incentive to political eflliciency. It 
is not to be doubted that in this way American politics have always 
induced millions of citizens to the liveliest participation. As we 
have seen, free-trade and protective tariff grew out of the chief de- 
mands of the two parties; but this does not prevent the same party 
opposition from standing in a way for the diverse and partly con- 
tradictory interests of Northern industry and Southern plantation 
life. Hence the parties are immediately interested in trade and 
commerce. In a similar way the interests of the West have been 
bound up in bi-metallism schemes, while the commercial integrity 
of the East depends on a gold currency. Legislation affecting 
trusts and banks and the policy of expansion touch some of the 
deepest economic problems, and summon all those concerned to 
come forward and play their part. The same holds true of social 
interests. The negro, struggling against legislation aimed directly 
at himself, seeks social protection through the Republican party, 
while the Irish, Swedes, and Russians also look for political 
recognition to advance their social interests. 

Now these moral, social, and economic motives interest the citizen 
of every land in politics; but there are other considerations here in 
play, which, although no less honourable, figure less importantly 
in Germany for example. First of all stands loyalty to the tra- 
ditions of one's party. The son joins the party of his father, and 



POLITICAL PARTIES 55 

is true to it for life. In this way many are held in the party net 
who otherwise might not agree to its general tenets. In a country 
where there are many parties with only slight shades of difference, 
where, say, the national-liberals are only a step removed from the 
independents or the independent-conservatives, each new election 
period offers the voter a free choice between parties. But where 
there are only two camps a party loyalty is developed which leaves 
very much less to personal inclination, and makes possible a 
firm party discipline. Then the citizen may come to say of his 
party as of his fatherland, " It may be right or wrong, it is still my 
party," A man like Hoar may use all the force of his rhetoric to 
condemn imperialism and to stigmatize it as a crime, and he may 
leave no stone unturned to bring his own Republican party to 
abandon the imperialistic policy, and yet, if his recommendations 
are officially outvoiced, he will not falter in supporting the regular 
candidates of his party, imperialists though they be, as against the 
anti-imperialist Democratic candidates. The typical American 
will rather wait for his own party to take up and correct the evils 
which he most deplores than go over to the other party which may 
be already working for the same reforms. 

To be sure, there are Americans who account this point of view 
narrow or even culpable, and who reserve the right of judging the 
programmes of both parties afresh each time and of casting their 
lot on the side which they find to be right. The example of Carl 
Schurz will be readily recalled, who in 1896 delivered notable 
speeches in favour of McKinley against Bryan, but came out in 
1900 for Bryan as against McKinley. He was a Republican on 
the first occasion, because at that time the question of currency 
was in the foreground, and he thought it paramount to preserve 
the gold standard, while in the next election he went over to the 
Democrats because the question of expansion had come to the 
fore, and he preferred the short-sighted silver policy to the un- 
righteous programme of war and subjugation. The number of 
such independent politicians is not small, and among them are 
many of the finest characters in the land. Behind them comes 
the considerable class of voters who may be won over to either 
party by momentary considerations of business prosperity, by any 
popular agitation for the sake of being with the crowd, by personal 
sympathies or antipathies, or merely through discontent with the 



5^ THE AMERICANS 

prevailing regime. If there were not an appreciable part of the 
people to oscillate in this way between the parties, the elections 
would fall out the same way from year to year, the result could al- 
ways be told beforehand, and neither party would have any in- 
centive to active effort; in short, political life would stagnate. 
Thus the citizens who owe no party allegiance but take sides ac- 
cording to the merits of the case are very efficient practically: in a 
way they represent the conscience of the country, and yet three- 
fourths of the population would look on their political creed with 
suspicion, or, indeed, contempt. They would insist that the Ameri- 
can system needs great parties, and that parties cannot be prac- 
tically effective if there is no discipline in their organization — that 
is, if the minority of their membership is not ready to submit cheer- 
fully to the will of the majority. If any man wishes to make re- 
forms, he should first set about to reform his party. Whereas, if 
on every difference of opinion he goes over to the enemy's camp, 
he simply destroys all respect for the weight of a majority, and 
therewith undermines all democracy. It is as if a party, which 
found itself defeated at the polls, should start a revolution; where- 
as it is the pride of the American people to accept without protest 
the government which the majority has chosen. And so party 
allegiance is taken as the mark of political maturity, and the men 
who hold themselves superior to their parties are influential at the 
polls, but in the party camps they see their arguments held in light 
esteem. They are mistrusted by the popular mind. 

In addition to all this the American happens to be a born poli- 
tician. On the one hand the mere technique of politics fascinates 
him; every boy is acquainted with parliamentary forms, and to 
frame amendments or file demurrers appeals vastly to his fancy. 
It is an hereditary trait. On the other hand, he finds in the party 
the most diversified social environment which he may hope to 
meet. Aside from his church, the farmer or artisan finds his sole 
social inspiration in his party, where the political assemblies and 
contact with men of like opinions with himself make him feel 
vividly that he is a free and equal participant in the mighty game. 
Moreover, local interests cannot be separated from those of the 
state, nor these from the affairs of the whole country; for the party 
lines are drawn even in the smallest community, and dominate 
public discussions whether great or small, so that even those who 



POLITICAL PARTIES 55 

feel no interest in national questions but are concerned only with 
local reforms, perhaps the school system or the police board, find 
themselves, nevertheless, drawn into the machinery of the great 
national parties. 

Yet another motive induces the American to enter politics, a 
motive which is neither good nor bad. Party politics have for 
many an aspect of sport, as can be easily understood from the 
Anglo-Saxon delight in competition and the nearly equal strength 
of the two parties. All the marks of sport can be seen in the daily 
calculations and the ridiculous wagers which are made, and in the 
prevalent desire to be on the side of the winner. Not otherwise 
can the parades, torch-light processions, and other demonstrations 
be explained, which are supposed to inspire the indifferent or wav- 
ering with the conviction that this party and not the other will 
come out victorious. 

The American, it is seen, has ample inducements to engage in 
the activities of party, from the noblest patriotic enthusiasm down 
to the mere excitement over a sport. And it is doubtless these 
various motives which sustain the parties in their activity and sup- 
ply such an inexhaustible sum of energy to the nation's politics. 
By them the masses are kept busily turning the political wheels 
and so provided with a political schooling such as they get in no 
other country. 

But we have seen that to enlist in the service of a political party 
means more than to discuss and vote conscientiously, to work on 
committees, or to contribute to the party treasury. Every detail 
of elections, local or national, in every part of the country, has to 
be planned and worked out by the party organization; and par- 
ticularly in the matter of nomination of candidates by the mem- 
bers of the party, the work of arranging and agitating one scheme 
or another has become a veritable science, demanding far more 
than merely amateur ability. It must not be forgotten that in 
questions of a majority the American complacent good humour 
is put aside. The party caucuses are managed on such busi- 
ness-like methods that even in the most stormy debates the mi- 
nutest points of expediency are kept well in mind. If the several 
interests are not represented with all that expertness with which 
an attorney at court would plead the cause of a client, their case is 
as good as lost. The managers have to study and know the least 



5(5 THE AMERICANS 

details, be acquainted with personal and local conditions, with the 
attitude of the press, of the officials, and of the other party leaders. 
Those members of the organization who conduct the large federal 
sections and so deal with more than local affairs, have to be at 
once lawyers, financiers, generals, and diplomats. Shrewd com- 
binations have to be devised in which city, state, and national 
questions are nicely interwoven and matters of personal tact and 
abstract right made to play into each other; and these arrange- 
ments must be carried out with an energy and discretion that will 
require the undivided attention of any man who hopes to succeed 
at the business. Thus the American conditions demand in the way 
of organization and agitation such an outlay of strength as could 
not be expected of the citizens of any country, except in times of 
war, unless in addition to patriotic motives some more concrete 
inducements should be offered. And thus there are certain ad- 
vantages and rewards accruing to the men who devote themselves 
to this indispensable work. 

The first of these inducements is, presumably, honour. The per- 
sonal distinctions which may be gotten in politics cannot easily be 
estimated after German standards. There are both credits and 
debits which the German does not suspect. To the former be- 
longs the important fact that all offices up to the very highest can 
be reached only by the way of party politics. The positions of 
president, ambassadors, governors, senators, ministers, and so 
forth are all provided with salaries, but such inadequate ones as 
compared with the scale of living which is expected of the incum- 
bents that no one would even accept any of these positions for the 
sake of the remuneration. In most cases an actual financial sac- 
rifice has to be made, since the holding of office is not an assured 
career, but rather a brief interruption of one's private business. 
It is to be remembered, moreover, that a civil office carries no pen- 
sion. And thus it frequently happens that a man ends his polit- 
ical career because he has spent all of his money, or because he 
feels it a duty to secure his financial position. Reed, who was in 
a way the most important Republican leader, gave up his position 
as speaker of the House of Representatives and broke off all polit- 
ical entanglements in order to become partner in a law firm. In 
the same way Harrison, on retiring from the presidency, resumed 
his practice of law, and Day resigned the secretaryship of state 



POLITICAL PARTIES 57 

because his financial resources were not adequate. An ambassa- 
dor hardly expects his salary to be more than a fraction of his ex- 
penditures. Now this circumstance need excite no pity, since 
there is an abundance of rich men in America, and the Senate has 
been nicknamed the Millionaire's Club; but it should serve to 
show that honour, prestige, and influence are the real incentives 
to a political career, and not the "almighty dollar," as certain 
detractors would have one believe. There are persons, to be 
sure, who have gotten money in politics, but they are few and in- 
significant beside those who have been in politics because they had 
money. The political career in America thus offers greater social 
rewards than in Germany, where the holding of office is divorced 
from politics, where the government is an hereditary monarchy 
and strongly influenced by an hereditary aristocracy, and where 
even the merest mayor or city councilman must have his appoint- 
ment confirmed by the government. 

Since the social premiums of the political life are so many and 
so important it may seem astonishing that this career does not at- 
tract all the best strength of the nation, and even embarrass the 
parties with an overplus of great men. The reasons why it does 
not are as follows: Firstly, distinctions due merely to office or 
position have not in a democratic country the same exclusive 
value which they have with an aristocratic nation. The feeling 
of social equality is much stronger, and all consideration and re- 
gard are paid to a man's personal qualities rather than to his sta- 
tion. A land which knows no nobility, titles, or orders is un- 
schooled in these artificial distinctions, and while there is some 
social diff^erentiation it is incomparably less. One looks for one's 
neighbour to be a gentleman, and is not concerned to find out 
what he does during office hours. The reputation and influence 
which are earned in political life are much more potent than any 
honour deriving from position. But here is found a second 
retarding factor: the structure of American politics does not con- 
duce to fame. In Germany the party leaders are constantly in 
the public eye; they deliver important speeches in the Reichstag 
or the Landtag, and their oratorical achievements are read in 
every home. In America the debates of Congress are very little 
read, and those of the state legislatures almost not at all; the 
work of government is done in committees. The speeches of the 



^8 THE AMERICANS 

Senate are the most likely to become known, and yet no one 
becomes famous in America through his parliamentary utterances, 
and public sentiment is seldom influenced by oratorical per- 
formances at Washington. 

In the third place, every American party officer must have 
served in the ranks and worked his way up. It is not every man's 
business to spend his time with the disagreeable minutiae of the 
local party organization; and even if he does not dislike the work, 
he may well object to the society with which he is thrown in these 
lower political strata. A fourth and perhaps the principal item 
comes in here. In its lowest departments politics can be made to 
yield a pecuniary return, and for this reason attracts undesirable 
and perhaps unscrupulous elements whose mere co-operation is 
enough to disgust better men and to give the purely political career 
a lower status in public opinion than might be expected in such a 
thoroughly political community. 

This question of the pecuniary income from political sources is 
even by the Americans themselves seldom fairly treated. There 
are three possible sources of income. Firstly, the representatives 
of the people are directly remunerated; secondly, the politician 
may obtain a salaried federal, state, or municipal office; and, 
thirdly, he may misuse his influence or his office unlawfully to en- 
rich himself. It is a regrettable fact that the first source of revenue 
attracts a goodly number into politics. It is not the case with 
Congress, but many a man sits in the state legislatures who is 
there only for the salary, while in reality the monetary allowance 
was never meant as an inducement but as a compensation, since 
otherwise many would be deterred altogether from politics. But 
the stipend is small and attracts no one who has capacity enough 
to earn more in a regular profession. It attracts, however, all 
kinds of forlorn and ill-starred individuals, who then scramble in- 
to local politics and do their best to bring the calling into disrepute. 
And yet, after all, these are so small a fraction of the politicians as 
to be entirely negligible. There would be much worse evils if the 
salaries were to be abolished. There are others who make money 
in criminal ways, and of course they have ample opportunity for 
deception, theft, and corruption in both town and country. Their 
case is not open to any difi^erence of opinion. It is easy for a 
member of the school committee to get hold of the land on which 



POLITICAL PARTIES 5P 

the next school-house is to be built, and to sell it at a profit; or for 
a mayor to approve a street-car line which is directly for the ad- 
vantage of his private associates; or for a captain of police to ac- 
cept hush money from unlawful gambling houses. Everybody 
knows that this sort of thing is possible, and that the perpetrators 
can with difficulty be convicted, yet they occasionally are and then 
get the punishment which they deserve. But this is no more a 
part of the political system than the false entries of an absconding 
cashier are a part of banking. And even if every unproved sus- 
picion of dishonesty were shown to be well founded, the men who 
so abuse their positions would be as much the exceptions as are 
those who enter politics for the sake of the salary. We shall re- 
turn later to these excrescences. 

Of the three sources of income from politics, only one remains to 
be considered — the non-legislative but salaried offices with 
which the politician may be rewarded for his pains. This is the 
first and surest means by which the party keeps its great and in- 
dispensable army of retainers contentedly at work. And here the 
familiar evils enter in which are so often held up for discussion in 
Germany. An American reformer, in criticizing the condition of 
the parties, is very apt not to distinguish between the giving out 
of offices to professional politicians as rewards and the later cor- 
rupt using of these offices by their incumbents. And as soon as 
the politician receives an income from the public treasury, the 
reformer will cry "stop thief." The so-called "spoils system," 
by which the federal offices in the patronage of the President are 
distributed to those who have worked hardest in the interests of 
the victorious party, will occupy our attention when we come to 
the political problems of the day. We shall have then to mention 
the advantages and disadvantages of civil service reform. But it 
must be said right here that, however commendable this reform 
movement may be in many respects, and in none more than in the 
increased efficiency which it has effected in the public service, 
nevertheless the spoils system cannot be called dishonourable, and 
no one should characterize professional politicians as abominable 
reprobates because they are willing to accept civil positions as re- 
wards from the party for which they have laboured. 

It is a usage which has nothing to do with the corrupt exploita- 
tion of office, and the German who derives from it the favourite 



6o THE AMERICANS 

prejudice against the political life of the United States must not 
suppose that he has thereby justified the German conception of 
office. Quite on the contrary, no one ever expects the German 
government to bestow offices, titles, or orders on members of the 
political opposition, to confirm, for instance, an independent for the 
position of Landrat or a social democrat for city councillor, while 
co-operation in the plans of the government never goes unreward- 
ed. Above all, a German never looks on his official salary as a 
sort of present taken from the public treasury, but as the ordinary 
equivalent of the work which he does, while the American has a 
curious conception of the matter quite foreign to the German, 
which is the ground for his contempt of the "spoils system." To 
illustrate by a short example: a state attorney who had been elected 
to the same office time after time, was asked to renew his can- 
didacy at the coming elections. But he declined to do so, and ex- 
plained that he had been supported for twenty years out of the 
public funds, and that it was therefore high time for him to earn 
his own living by the ordinary practice of law. A German cannot 
understand this conception, traditional though it is in America, 
but he can easily see that the man who shares such views as to pub- 
lic salaries will naturally consider it an act of plunder when the 
party in power distributes the best public posts to its own followers. 

The case would be somewhat different if the politicians who step 
into offices were essentially incapable or indolent, though this is 
aside from the principle in question. Germans have recently be- 
come used to seeing a general or a merchant become minister. In 
America it is a matter of course that a capable man is qualified, 
with the aid of technically trained subordinates, for any office. 
And no one denies that politicians make industrious office-holders. 
And yet the same remarkable charge is always made, that the 
holder of an office receives a gift from the public chest. 

These considerations are not meant as an argument against civil 
service reform, which is supported by the best men of both parties, 
although they are not exactly the most zealous party "heelers." 
But the superficial assertion must be refuted, that the spoils sys- 
tem shows lack of morality in party politics. No unprejudiced 
observer would find anything improper in the attitude of those who 
endure the thankless and arduous labours imposed by the party 
for the sake of a profitable position in the government service. It 



POLITICAL PARTIES 6i 

would be equally just to reproach the German official with lack of 
character because he rises to a high position in the service of the 
government. If this were the true idea, Grover Cleveland, who 
has done more than any other president for the cause of civil ser- 
vice reform, could be said actually to have favored the spoils 
system. In an admirable essay on the independence of the ex- 
ecutive, he says : — 

"I have no sympathy with the intolerant people who, without 
the least appreciation of the meaning of party work and service, 
superciliously affect to despise all those who apply for office as 
they would those guilty of a flagrant misdemeanor. It will indeed 
be a happy day when the ascendancy of party principles and the 
attainment of wholesome administration will be universally re- 
garded as sufficient rewards of individual and legitimate party 
service. ... In the meantime why should we indiscrimin- 
ately hate those who seek office ? They may not have entirely 
emancipated themselves from the belief that the offices should pass 
with party victory, but in all other respects they are in many in- 
stances as honest, as capable, and as intelligent as any of us." 

There are such strong arguments for separating public office 
from the service of party, that every reformer is amply justified if 
on his native soil he stigmatizes the present usage as corrupt. But 
the representation that all professional politicians are despicable 
scamps because they work for their party in the hope of being pre- 
ferred for public office, is unjust and misleading when it is spread 
abroad in other countries. Abuses there are, to be sure, and the 
situation is such as to attract swarms of worthless persons. It is 
true, moreover, that even in the higher strata of professional poli- 
tics there is usually less of broad-minded statesmanship than of in- 
genious compromise and clever exploitation of the opposing par- 
ty's weaknesses and of popular whims and prejudices. Petty 
methods are often more successful than enlightened ones, and 
cunning men have better chances than those who are more high- 
minded. In the lower strata, moreover, where it is important to 
cajole the voting masses into the party fold, it may be inevitable 
that men undertake and are rewarded for very questionable ser- 
vices. Nevertheless the association of party and office is not in- 
trinsically improper. 

In the same category of unjust reproaches, finally, belongs the 



62 THE AMERICANS 

talk over the money paid into the party treasury. It is, of course, 
true that the elections both great and small eat up vast sums of 
money; the mountains of election pamphlets, the special trains for 
candidates who journey from place to place in order to harangue 
the people at every rural raiWay station, from the platform of the 
coach — Roosevelt is said at the last election in this way to have 
addressed three million persons — the banquet-halls and bands of 
music, and the thousand other requisites of the contest are not to 
be had for nothing. It is taken as a matter of course that the sup- 
porters of the party are taxed, and of course just those will be apt 
to contribute who look for further material benefit in case of vic- 
tory; it is also expected that, of course, the larger industries will 
help the propaganda of the high-tarifF party, that the silver mine 
owners will generously support bi-metallism, and that the beer 
brewers will furnish funds when it is a question between them and 
the Prohibitionists. But in the endeavour to hurt the opposing 
party some persons make such contributions a ground of despica- 
ble slander. Any one who considers the matter really without 
prejudice will see not only that the American party politics are a 
necessary institution, but also that they are infinitely cleaner and 
better than the European newspaper reader will ever be inclined 
to believe. 



CHAPTER THREE 

The President 

THE President of the United States is elected by the people 
every four years. He may be re-elected and, so far as the 
Constitution provides, he may hold the first position in the 
land for life, by terms always of four years at a time. A certain 
unwritten law, however, forbids his holding office for more than 
two terms. George Washington was elected for two terms, and 
after him Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, An- 
drew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleve- 
land, and William McKinley; that is, nine out of twenty presi- 
dents have received this distinction. No president has served a 
third term of office, because since Washington declined to be 
nominated for a third time the conservative sense of the Ameri- 
cans has cherished the doctrine that no man should stand at the 
helm of the nation longer than eight years. 

At the present day it is urged from many sides that the pro- 
visions of the Constitution ought to be changed. It is said that 
the frequently recurring presidential elections, with the popular 
excitement which they involve during the months immediately 
preceding, are an appreciable disturbance to economic life and 
that the possibility of being re-elected is too apt to make the 
President in the first term of office govern his actions with an eye 
to his second election. It is proposed, therefore, that every Presi- 
dent shall be elected for six years and that re-election shall be for- 
bidden by the Constitution. Experience of the past, however, 
hardly speaks for such a plan. The inclination shown by the 
President to yield to popular clamours or the instances of his 
party has been very different with different presidents, but on the 
whole it has not been noticeably greater in the first than in the 
second term of office. More especially, the disadvantages which 



64 "THE AMERICANS 

come from the excitement over elections are certainly made up 
for by the moral advantage which the act of election brings to the 
people. The presidential election is a period of considerable 
reflection and examination of the country's condition, and every- 
body is vv^orked up to considerable interest; and the more change- 
able the times are so much the more rapidly new problems come 
up. Therefore there should be no thought of putting the decisive 
public elections, with their month-long discussions, at further inter- 
vals apart. 

The most important duties and prerogatives of the President 
involve foreign as well as domestic affairs, and of the latter the 
most important concern the administration; a less important, al- 
though by no means an insignificant, part of his duties relates to 
legislation. The President is commander-in-chief of the army 
and of the navy, and with the approval of a majority of the Senate 
he appoints ambassadors, consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, 
and all the higher federal officials. Subject to the ratification of 
two-thirds of the Senate, he concludes treaties with foreign powers 
and regulates diplomatic relations. He has, moreover, the right 
to send back inside often days, with his veto, any bill which Con- 
gress has passed, and in this case the bill can become law only by 
being once more voted on by Congress and receiving in both 
houses a two-third's majority. The President has the power to 
convene both houses in special sessions, and is expected to send 
messages to both houses when they meet, in which he describes 
the political situation of the country and recommends new meas- 
ures. In addition to this he has the right of pardon and the right 
to afford protection to individual states against civil violence, if 
they cannot themselves quell the disturbance. 

Such are the principal features of the presidential office, and it 
is clear that here as everywhere in American civil law the spirit of 
precaution has tried from the outset to limit the possibilities of 
abuse. Although he is commander-in-chief of the army, the 
President has not the right to declare war, this right being given 
to Congress. The President negotiates with foreign representa- 
tives and signs all treaties, but these are not valid until the Senate 
has approved them with a two-thirds vote. He nominates gov- 
ernment officials, but once again only with the sanction of the 
Senate. The President convenes Congress and recommends mat- 



THE PRESIDENT 65 

ters for its legislative consideration, but the President cannot, like 
the German Government, lay bills before Congress for its ratifi- 
cation. While the President sends his message to Congress his 
ministers have not, as in Germany, a seat in parliament, and can- 
not, therefore, in the debates actively support the President's 
policy. 

The President is authorized to veto any bill that is passed 
through Congress, but his veto is not final since the bill can still be- 
come a law^ if Congress is sufficiently of one accord to override his 
veto. Therefore a v^himsical or arbitrary president w^ould find 
small scope for his vagaries so long as he keeps within his pov^^ers, 
while if he exceeds them he can be impeached, like a king 
under old English law. The House of Representatives can at any 
time file complaint against the President if he is suspected of 
treason or corruption or any other crime. In such case the Senate, 
under the chairmanship of a judge of the Supreme bench, con- 
stitutes a court of trial which is empowered to depose the Presi- 
dent from ofiice. Up to the present time but one president, 
Andrew Johnson, has been impeached, and he was acquitted. 
The seditionary ambition of a man who should try to gain com- 
plete control, to overthrow the Constitution, and at the head of the 
army, or of the populace, or, as might be more likely, of the million- 
aires, to institute a monarchy, would have no chance of success. 
Neither a Napoleon nor a Boulanger would be possible in America. 

In spite of these provisions, it is to be observed that tremendous 
power is in the hands of this one man. Thousands and thousands 
of officials appointed by his predecessor can be removed by a 
stroke of his pen, and none can take their places except those 
whom he nominates. And he can put a barrier before any law 
such as Congress could only in exceptional cases ride over. Cleve- 
land, for instance, who to be sure made the freest use of his au- 
thority in this respect, vetoed more than three hundred bills, and 
only twice did Congress succeed in setting aside his veto. The 
President may negotiate with foreign powers up to the point 
where a loyal and patriotic Congress has hardly any choice 
but to acquiesce. The President can virtually force Congress to 
a declaration of war, and if insurrection breaks out in any state he 
can at his pleasure employ the federal troops on behalf of one or 
the other faction, and when 'war has once been declared the 



66 THE AMERICANS 

presidential authority grows hourly in importance. The army 
and navy stand under his direction, and since the Constitution 
makes him responsible for the maintenance of law and order in 
the country he becomes virtually dictator in case of an insurrection. 
Bryce says very justly that Abraham Lincoln exercised more power 
than any man in England since Oliver Cromwell, and the anti- 
imperialistic papers of America always assert that in their Philip- 
pine policy McKinley and Roosevelt have taken on themselves 
more authority than any European monarch, excepting the Czar, 
could acquire. 

In two respects the President is more important as compared 
with the representatives of the people, even in times of peace, than 
the king of England or the President of France. Firstly, his cab- 
inet is entirely independent of the voice of parliament, and it has 
often been the case that while a majority in Congress sharply op- 
posed the party policy of the President, this has not influenced the 
composition of his cabinet. The cabinet ministers are the rep- 
resentatives of the presidential policy, and they do not even take 
part in the doings of Congress. 

Secondly, the President is not less but rather more than Con- 
gress a representative of the people. A monarch who takes up a 
position against the parliament thereby antagonizes the people. 
The President of France is elected by the people, but only through 
their parliamentary representatives; the chambers elect him, and 
therefore he is not an independent authority. The President of 
the United States, on the other hand, is in his own person a symbol 
of the collective will of the people, as opposed to the difi^erent 
members of Congress, which is of diverse composition and chosen 
on more local issues. There is moral authority, therefore, vested 
in the President. He is the true will of the people and his veto is 
their conscience. It is almost astonishing that a Republican 
democracy should have put such tremendous power into the hands 
of a single man. It is the more striking inasmuch as the Declara- 
tion of Independence related at length the sins of the English mon- 
arch. But we must bear in mind that the framers of the Consti- 
tution had to make a new and dangerous experiment, wherein 
they were much more afraid of that so far unknown and incal- 
culable factor, the rule of the people, than the power of that single 
person whose administrative possibilities they had, in the colonial 



THE PRESIDENT 6y 

days, been able to observe in the governors of the several states. 
These had been diminutive but, on the v^hole, encouraging ex- 
amples. Before all else the great and incomparable George 
Washington, the popular, dashing, and yet cautious aristocrat, 
had presided at the deliberations in which the Constitution was 
discussed, and had himself stood tangibly before the popular 
mind as the very ideal of a president. 

Thus the President stands with tremendous powers at the helm 
of the nation. Who has sought him out for this position from the 
hundreds of thousands, whose hot ambition has led them to dream 
of such a distinction, and who has finally established him in 
this highest elective office on the face of the earth ? The Consti- 
tution makes no other provision for the selection of a candidate 
than that he shall have been born in the land, that he shall be at 
least thirty-five years old, and shall have resided at least fourteen 
years in this his native country. On the other hand, the Consti- 
tutional provisions for his election are highly complicated, much 
more so indeed than the circumstances really call for. In fact, 
while the electoral procedures still comply with the wording of the 
original Constitution, actual conditions have so changed since the 
establishment of the Union that the prescribed machinery is not 
only partly unnecessary, but in some cases even works in opposi- 
tion to what had been originally intended, and inconsistently with 
itself. The law requires, merely to mention the main point, that 
every state shall elect by popular vote a certain number of men 
who are called electors, and that a majority of the electors shall 
choose the President. For each state the number of electors is 
the same as that of the representatives which it sends to both 
houses of Congress together; it depends, therefore, on the number 
of inhabitants. Out of the 447 electors, 36 come from the State 
of New York, 32 from Pennsylvania, 24 from Illinois, 23 from 
Ohio, 15 from Massachusetts, but only 4 from Colorado, Florida, 
or New Hampshire; and only 3 from Delaware, Idaho, North 
Dakota, Utah, and several others. In case the vote of the electors 
should give no absolute majority to any candidate, the House of 
Representatives has to elect the President from among the three 
candidates who have received the greatest number of electoral votes. 

The intention of the men who framed the Constitution in mak- 
ing these roundabout electoral provisions is clear enough; the 



68 THE AMERICANS 

election was not meant to be made directly by the people. When 
in the first discussions of the Constitution it was suggested that 
the President be elected directly by the people, some of the framers 
called the scheme chimerical and others called it impracticable. 
Indeed, some even doubted whether the people would be com- 
petent to choose the electors since, it was said, they would know 
too little about the persons and so would be liable to grave errors. 
This mistrust went so far, it is said, that leaving the election of the 
highest executives directly to the people seemed as unnatural 
as asking a blind man to match colors. The first plan which was 
at all approved by the Assembly was that Congress should elect 
the President; and not until later did it adopt the system of elect- 
ors. It was hoped that for the electoral college the people would 
select the best, most experienced, and most cautious men of the 
country, and that these men should be left quite free to choose the 
highest executive as carefully and conscientiously as possible : and 
so it really happened when the electors met for the first time and 
fixed unanimously on George Washington. 

But the situation is somewhat changed to-day: for a hundred 
years it has been the case that the electors have inevitably been 
deprived of all free choice. They are as passive as a printed ballot. 
They are no longer elected in order to come to a decision as to the 
best President, but merely to vote for this or that special candidate 
as designated, and for a hundred years not a single elector has dis- 
appointed this expectation. Thus the election of the President 
is practically accomplished on the day in November when the 
electors are voted for. McKinley defeated Bryan for the Presi- 
dency on the ninth of November, 1900, although no elector had 
officially voted for either one or the other; nor would he have a 
chance to vote until the first day of January, when he was mechani- 
cally to deposit his ballot. 

The indirect election prescribed by the Constitution has there- 
fore become to all intents and purposes a direct one, and the whole 
machinery of electors is really superfluous. It may, indeed, be 
said to have become contradictory in itself. 

Since the original intention to make an electoral college of the 
best citizens has been frustrated by the popular spirit of self- 
determination, the electoral apparatus can have to-day no other 
significance than to give expression to the voice of the majority. 



THE PRESIDENT 6g 

But now just this it is in the power of the electoral system com- 
pletely to suppress. Let us suppose that only two candidates 
are in question. If the election were simply a direct one, of course 
that candidate would win who received the most votes; but with 
electors this is not the case, because the number of electors who 
are pledged to vote for these two candidates need not at all cor- 
respond to the number of ballots cast on the two sides. If in the 
State of New York, for instance, three-fifths of the population are 
for the first candidate and two-fifths for the second, the three- 
fifths majority determines the whole list of 36 electors for the first 
candidate, and not an elector would be chosen for the other. Now 
it can very well happen that a candidate in those states in which he 
secures all the electors will have small majorities, that is, his op- 
ponent will have large minorities, while his opponent in the states 
which vote for him will have large majorities; and in this way the 
majority of electors will be pledged for that candidate who has re- 
ceived actually the smaller number of votes. It is a fact that both 
Hayes in 1877 and Harrison in 1889 were constitutionally elected 
for the Presidency by a minority of votes. 

While in form the voters choose only the electors from their 
state, nevertheless these ballots thus actually count for a certain 
candidate. At the last election 292 electors voted for McKinley, 
and 155 for Bryan, while for the McKinley electors 832,280 more 
votes were cast than for the Bryan electors. We have already 
seen how it is that the best man will no longer, as in Washington's 
time, be unequivocally elected by the people, andHvhy^ although 
a unanimous choice of President has not taken place since 
Washington's time, nevertheless no more than two candidates are 
ever practically in question. It was for this that we have dis- 
cussed the parties first. The parties are the factor which makes 
it impossible for a President to be elected without a contest, and 
which, as early as 1797, when the successor of Washington had to 
be nominated, divided the people in two sections, the supporters 
of Jefferson and of Adams. At the same time, however, the par- 
ties prevent the division from going further, and bring it about 
that this population of millions of people compactly organizes it- 
self for Presidential elections in only two groups, so that although 
never less than two, still never more than two candidates really 
step into the arena. 



yo THE AMERICANS 

For both great parties alike, with their central and local com- 
mittees, with their professional politicians, with their leaders and 
their followers, whether engaging in politics out of interest or in 
hope of gain, as an ideal or as sport — for all alike comes the great 
day when the President is to be elected. For years previous 
the party leaders will have combined and dissolved and specu- 
lated and intrigued, and for years the friends of the possible can- 
didates have spoken loudly in the newspapers, since here, of 
course, not only the election but also the nomination of the candi- 
date depends on the people. Although the election is in Novem- 
ber, the national conventions for nominating the party candidates 
come generally in July. Each state sends its delegation, number- 
ing twice as many as the members of Congress from that state, and 
each delegation is once more duly elected by a convention of rep- 
resentatives chosen by the actual voters out of their party lists. 
In these national conventions the great battles of the country 
are fought, that is, within the party, and here the general trend of 
national politics is determined. It is the great trial moment for 
the party and the party heroes. At the last election McKinley 
and Bryan were the opposing candidates, and it is interesting to 
trace in their elections by the respective conventions two great 
types of party decision. 

McKinley had grown slowly in public favour; he was the ac- 
complished politician, the interesting leader of Congress, the sym- 
pathetic man who had no enemies. When the Republican conven- 
tion met at Chicago, in 1888, he was a member of the delegation 
from Ohio and was pledged to do his utmost for the nomination of 
John Sherman. The ballots were cast five different times and 
every time no one candidate was found to have a majority. On 
the sixth trial one vote was cast for McKinley, and the announce- 
ment of this vote created an uproar. A sudden shifting of the 
opinions took place amid great acclamation, and the delegations 
all went over to him. He jumped up on a stool and called loudly 
through the hall that he should be offended by any man who voted 
for him since he himself had been pledged to vote for Sherman. 
Finally a compromise was found in Benjamin Harrison. At the 
convention in Minneapolis four years later McKinley was chair- 
man, and once more the temptation came to him. The opponents 
of Harrison wished to oppose his re-election by uniting on the Ohio 



THE PRESIDENT yi 

statesman, and again it was McKinley himself who turned the 
vote this time in favour of Harrison. His own time came finally 
in 1896. In the national convention at St. Louis 661 votes were 
cast in the first ballot for McKinley, while 84 were cast for 
Thomas Reed, 61 for Quay, 58 for Morton, and 35 for Allison. 
And when, in 1900, the national convention met in Philadel- 
phia, 926 votes were straightway cast for McKinley, and none 
opposing. His was the steady, sure, and deserved rise from 
step to step through tireless exertions for his party and his 
country. 

Bryan was a young and unknown lawyer, who had sat for a 
couple of years in the House of Representatives like any other 
delegate, and had warmly upheld bi-metallism. At the Demo- 
cratic national convention at Chicago in 1896 almost nobody 
knew him. But it was a curious crisis in the Democratic party. 
It had been victorious four years previous in its campaign for 
Cleveland against Harrison, but the party as such had enjoyed no 
particular satisfaction. The self-willed and determined Cleveland, 
who had systematically opposed Congress tooth and nail, had 
fallen out with his party and nowhere on the horizon had appeared 
a new leader. And after a true statesman like Cleveland had 
come to grief, the petty politicians, who had neither ideas nor a 
programme, came to their own. Every one was looking for a 
strong personality when Bryan stepped forth to ingratiate him- 
self and his silver programme in the affections of his party. His 
arguments were not new, but his catch-words were well studied, 
and here at last stood a fascinating personality with a forceful 
temperament which was all aglow, and with a voice that sounded 
like the tones of an organ. And when he cried out, "You must 
not nail humanity to a cross of gold," it was as if an omen had 
appeared. He became at once the Democratic candidate for the 
Presidency, and six months later six and one-half million votes 
were cast for him against the seven million for McKinley. Nor 
did the silver intoxication succumb to its first defeat. When the 
Democrats met again in 1900, all the endeavours of those who 
had adhered to a gold currency were seen to be futile. Once 
again the silver-tongued Nebraskan was carried about in triumph, 
and not until its second defeat did the Democratic party wake up. 
Bryanism is now a dead issue, and before the next Presidential 



yz THE AMERICANS 

election the programme of the Democratic party will be entirely 
reconstructed. 

Thus the presidents of the nation grow organically out of the 
party structure, and the parties find in turn their highest duty and 
their reward in electing their President. The people organized in 
a party and the chief executive which that party elects belong nec- 
essarily together. They are the base and the summit. Nothing 
but death can overthrow the decision of the people; death did 
overthrow, indeed, the last decision after a few months, in Sep- 
tember, 1901, when the cowardly assassination accomplished by a 
Polish anarchist brought the administration of McKinley to an 
end. As the Constitution provides, the man whom the people 
had elected to the relatively insignificant ofl&ce of Vice-President 
became master in the White House. 

The Vice-Presidency is from the point of view of political logic 
the least satisfactory place in American politics. Very early in 
the history of the United States the filling of this office occasioned 
many difficulties, and at that time the provisions of the Constitu- 
tion referring to it were completely worked over. The Constitu- 
tion had originally said that the man who had the second largest 
number of votes for the Presidency should become Vice-President. 
This was conceived in the spirit of the time when the two-party 
system did not exist and when it was expected that the elector? 
should not be restricted by the voting public in their choice of the 
best man. As soon, however, as the opposition between the two 
parties came into being, the necessary result of such provision was 
that the presidential candidate of the defeated party should be- 
come Vice-President, and therefore that President and Vice-Presi- 
dent should always represent diametrically opposed tendencies. 
A change in the Constitution did away with this political impossi- 
bility. Each elector was instructed to deposit separate ballots 
for President and Vice-President, and that candidate became 
Vice-President who received the largest number of votes for that 
office, both offices being thus invariably filled by candidates of the 
same party. 

In spite of this the position has developed rather unsatisfactorily 
for an obvious reason. The Constitution condemns the Vice- 
President, so long as the President holds office, to an ornamental 
inactivity. It is his duty to preside at sessions of the Senate, a 



THE PRESIDENT 73 

task which he for the most part performs silently, and which has 
not nearly the political significance enjoyed by the Speaker of the 
House of Representatives. On the other hand, men still in the 
prime of life are almost always elected to the Presidency; the possi- 
bility is therefore almost always lost sight of that the President 
can die before the expiration of his four years' term of office. The 
result has been that less distinguished men, who have, nevertheless, 
served their parties, are usually chosen for this insignificant and 
passive role. The office is designed to be an honour and a con- 
solation to them, and sometimes for one reason or another their 
candidacy is supposed otherwise to strengthen the outlook of the 
party. It is not accident that while in the several states the Lieu- 
tenant-Governor is very often the next man to be elected Gover- 
nor, it has never so far happened that a Vice-President has been 
elected to the Presidency. 

Now in the unexpected event of the President's death a man 
stands at the helm whom no one really wants to see there; and it 
has five times happened that the chief executive of the nation has 
died in office, and four times, indeed, only a few months after being 
installed, so that the Vice-President has had to guide the destinies 
of the country for almost four years. When Tyler succeeded to 
the place of Harrison in 1 841, there arose at once unfavourable 
disputes with the Whig party, which had elected him. When, 
after the murder of Lincoln in 1865, Johnson took the reins, it was 
his own Republican party which regretted having elected this im- 
petuous man to the Vice-Presidency; and when, in 1881, after the 
assassination of Garfield, his successor, Arthur, undertook the 
office, and filled it indeed by no means badly, considerable con- 
sternation was felt throughout the country when people saw that 
so ordinary a professional politician was to succeed Garfield, on 
whom the country had pinned its faith. 

On the death of McKinley a Vice-President succeeded him to- 
ward whom, in one respect at least, the feeling was very different. 
If ever a man was born to become President that man was Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. Nevertheless, he had not been elected in ex- 
pectation of becoming President, and at first the whole country 
felt once more that it was a case which had lain outside of all 
reasonable calculations. Roosevelt's friends had asked him to 
make a sacrifice and to accept a thankless office because they 



74- THE AMERICANS 

knew that his name on the ballot of the Republican party — for his 
Rough Rider reputation during the war was still fresh — would be 
pretty sure to bring about the election of McKinley. The oppo- 
nents also of this strong and energetic young man, against his stout- 
est protestations, upheld his candidacy with every means in their 
power. Firstly because they wanted to get rid of him as Governor 
of the State of New York, where he made life too hard for the 
regular politicians, and secondly because they relied on the tradi- 
tion that holding the Vice-Presidency would invalidate him as a 
Presidential candidate in 1904. Neither friends nor enemies had 
thought of such a possibility as McKinley's death. Roosevelt's 
friends had rightly judged; the hero of San Juan did bring victory 
to his party. His enemies, on the other hand, had entirely missed 
their mark not only on the outcome, but from the very beginning. 
Odell became Governor of New York, and quite unexpectedly he 
stood out even more stoutly against the political corruptionists. 
And, on the other hand, Roosevelt's impulsive nature quickly 
found ways to break the traditional silence of the Vice-President 
and to keep himself before the eyes of the world. There is no 
doubt that in spite of all traditions his incumbency would have 
been a preparation for the presidential candidacy. But when, 
through the crime committed at Buffalo, everything came out so 
differently from that which the politicians expected, it seemed to 
the admirers of Roosevelt almost like the tragic hand of fate; he 
had done his best to attain on his own account the Presidency, 
and now it came to him almost as the gift of chance. Only the 
next election may be expected to do him full justice. 

The successive moments in his rapid rise are generally known, 
Roosevelt was born in New York in 1858, his father being a pros- 
perous merchant and well-known philanthropist, and a descend- 
ant of an old Knickerbocker family. The son was prepared for 
college and went to Harvard, where he made a special study of 
history and political economy. After that he travelled in Europe, 
and when he was still only twenty-four years old, he plunged into 
politics. He soon obtained a Republican seat in the state legis- 
lature of New York, and there commenced his tireless fight for re- 
form in municipal and state administration. In 1889 President 
Harrison appointed him Commissioner of the Civil Service, but 
he resigned this position in 1895 in order to become Chief of Police 



THE PRESIDENT 75 

in New York. Only two years later he was once more called from 
municipal to national duties. He was appointed Assistant Secre- 
tary of the Navy. All this time his administrative duties did not 
interrupt his literary, historical, and scientific work. He had be- 
gun his career as an author with his studies in the history of the 
navy and his admirable biographies of American statesmen. 
When he was thirty years old he wrote the first part of his great 
work, "The Winning of the West," and often between the publi- 
cation of his scientific works he published lesser books, describing 
his adventures as huntsman in the primeval wilderness, and later 
on volumes in which his social and political essays were collected. 

Then the Spanish War arose and the Assistant Secretary could 
not bear to sit at his desk while others were moving to the field of 
battle. He gathered about him a volunteer regiment of cavalry, 
in which the dare-devil cow-punchers of the prairie rode side by 
side with the adventurous scions of the most distinguished fami- 
lies in Boston and New York. Roosevelt's friend. Wood, of the 
regular army, became Colonel in this soon-famous regiment, and 
Roosevelt himself Lieutenant-Colonel. A few days after they had 
successfully stormed the hill at San Juan, Wood became General 
and Roosevelt Colonel. 

His native State of New York received him on his home-coming 
with general rejoicing, and he found himself a few months later 
Governor of the State. At Albany he showed tremendous energy, 
put through popular reforms, and fought against the encroach- 
ments of the industrial corporations. It had been his personal 
wish to be Governor for a second year, but this was denied him by 
the admirable doings of his Eastern enemies and Western admir- 
ers at the national convention of June, 1900, held in Pennsylvania, 
where he was forced to become candidate for the position of Vice- 
President. On the 14th of September, 1901, in Buffalo, he took 
the Presidential oath of office. 

At that time a quiet anxiety for the future was mingled with the 
honest sorrow which the whole land felt for the death of McKinley. 
A nation which had been sunning itself in peace suddenly found 
itself under the leadership of an impulsive colonel of cavalry, who 
carried in his hand the banner of war. The nation was in the 
midst of an economic development which needed before every- 
thing else to have a mature and careful leader w ho was honoured 



7(5 THE AMERICANS 

and trusted by all classes, and who would be able to effect some 
work of reconciliation between them; when suddenly there stood 
in the place of a most conservative statesman an impetuous young 
man who was not intimately connected with industrial life, 
who had for a long time made himself unpopular with party poli- 
ticians, and whom even his admirers in the land seemed hardly to 
trust on account of his hasty and determined impetuosity. Roose- 
velt had been envisaged by the masses, through the cinematograph 
of the press, in campaign hat and khaki uniform, just in the atti- 
tude of taking San Juan hill. Nearly everybody forgot that he had 
for a long time quietly carried on the exacting labours of Police 
Commissioner in the largest city of the country; and forgot how, 
from his first year of study at Harvard on, every day had been given 
to preparing himself for public service and for acquiring a thorough 
understanding of all the political, social, and economic problems 
which the country had to face; they forgot also that he had wielded 
the sword for only a few months, but the pen of the historian for 
about two decades. Roosevelt's first public utterance was a pledge 
to continue unchanged the peaceful policy of his predecessor 
and always to consider the national prosperity and honour. 
Still, people felt that no successor would be able to command that 
experience, maturity, and party influence which McKinley had 
had. 

There have been differences of opinion, and, as was to be ex- 
pected, complaints and criticisms have come from the midst of his 
own party. Yet any one who looks at his whole administration 
will see that in those first years Roosevelt won a more difficult and 
brilliant victory than he had won over the Spanish troops. 

He had three virtues which especially overcame all small criti- 
cism. The people felt, in the first place, that a moral force was 
here at work which was more powerful than any mere political 
address or diplomatic subtlety. An immediate ethical force was 
here felt which owned to ideas above any party, and set inner 
ideals above merely outward success. Roosevelt's second virtue 
was courage. A certain purely ethical ideal exalted above all 
petty expediencies was for him not only the nucleus of his own 
creed, but was also his spring of action; and he took no account 
of personal dangers. Here was the key-note of all his speeches — 
it is not enough to approve of what is right, it is equally necessary 



THE PRESIDENT 77 

to act for it fearlessly and unequivocally. Then he went on to his 
work, and if, indeed, in complicated political situations the Presi- 
dent has had at times to clinch some points by aid of compromise, 
nevertheless the nation has felt with growing confidence that at no 
serious moment has he wavered a hair's breadth from the straight 
line of his convictions, and that he has had the courage to disre- 
gard everything but what he held to be right. And, thirdly, 
Roosevelt had the virtue of being sincere. 

McKinley also had purposed to do right, but he had hardly an 
occasion for displaying great courage since so incomparably dis- 
creet a politician as he was could avoid every conflict with his as- 
sociates, and he was ever the leader on highways which the popu- 
lar humour had indicated. Thus the masses never felt that he 
was at bottom lacking in courage or that he always put ofi^ re- 
sponsibility on others. The masses did, however, instinctively 
feel that McKinley's astute and kindly words were not always sin- 
cere; his words were often there to conceal something which was 
locked up behind his Napoleonic forehead. And now there suc- 
ceeded him an enthusiast who brimmed over with plain expres- 
sions of what he felt, and whose words were so convincingly candid 
and so without reservation that every one had the feeling of being 
in the personal confidence of the President. 

There was a good deal more besides his moral earnestness, his 
courage, and his frank honesty which contributed to Roosevelt's 
entire success. His lack of prejudice won the lower classes, and 
his aristocratic breeding and education won the upper, while the 
middle classes were enthusiastic over his sportsmanship. No Presi- 
dent had been more unprejudiced or more truly democratic. He 
met the poor miner on the same footing as he met the mine owner; 
he invited the negro to the White House; he sat down and broke 
bread with the cow-boys; and when he travelled he first shook the 
sooty hand of the locomotive engineer before he greeted the gen- 
tlemen who had gathered about in their silk hats. And, neverthe- 
less, he was in many years the first real aristocrat to become Presi- 
dent. The changes in the White House itself were typical. This 
venerable Presidential dwelling had been, up to Roosevelt's time, 
in its inner arrangements a dreary combination of bare offices, 
somewhat crudely decorated private dwelling, and cheerless re- 
ception-halls. To-day it is a very proper palace, containing many 



y8 THE AMERICANS 

fine works of art, and office-seekers no longer have access to the 
inner rooms. His predecessors, the Clevelands and Harrisons 
and McKinleys, had been, in fact, very respectable philistines. 
They had come from the middle classes of the country, which are 
in thought and feeling very different from that upper class which, 
up to a short time ago, had bothered itself less about practical 
politics than about general culture, literature, art, criticism, and 
broadly conceived industrial operations, combined with social 
high-life. This class, however, had begun at length to feel that it 
ought not to disdain to notice political abuses, to walk around 
the sea of troubles; but had begun to take up arms and by oppos- 
ing end them. Aristocracy had too long believed in political mer- 
cenaries. 

Roosevelt was the first to lift himself from these circles and be- 
come a great leader. Not alone the nobility of his character but 
also of his culture and traditions was shown in his entire habit of 
mind. Never in his speeches or writings has he cited that socially 
equalizing Declaration of Independence, and while his speeches 
at banquets and small gatherings of scholarly men have been in- 
comparably more fascinating than his strenuous utterances to 
the voters, which he has made on his public tours, it has been 
often less the originality of his thoughts and still less the pecu- 
liarly taking quality of his delivery, than the evidences of ripe 
culture, which seem to pervade his political thought. Thus the 
smaller the circle to which he speaks the greater is his advantage; 
and in speaking with him personally on serious problems one feels 
that distinction of thought, breadth of historical outlook, and con- 
fidence in self have united in him to create a personality after the 
grand manner. 

The impression which Roosevelt has made on his own country 
has not been more profound than his influence on the galaxy of 
nations. At the very hour when the United States by their economic 
and territorial expansion stepped into the circle of world powers, 
they had at their head a personality who, for the first time in dec- 
ades, had been able to make a great, characteristic, and, most of 
all, a dramatic impression on the peoples of Europe. And if this 
hour was to be made the most of it was not enough that this lead- 
er should by his impulsiveness and self-will, by his picturesque 
gestures and effective utterance, chain the attention of the masses 



THE PRESIDENT 79 

and excite all newspaper readers, but he must also win the sym- 
pathies of the keener and finer minds, and excite some sympathetic 
response in the heads of monarchies. A second Lincoln would 
never have been able to do this, and just this was what the moment 
demanded. The nation's world-wide position in politics needed 
some comparable expansion in the social sphere. Other peoples 
were to welcome their new comrades not only in the official bureau 
but also in the reception-room, and this young President had 
always at his command a graceful word, a tactful expedient, and a 
distinguished and hospitable address. He was, in short, quite the 
right man. 

Any new person taking hold so firmly has to disturb a good 
many things; busied with so much, he must overturn a good deal 
vv'hich would prefer to be left as it was. The honest man has his 
goodly share of enemies. And it is not to be denied that Roose- 
velt has the failings of his virtues, and these have borne their con- 
sequences. Many national dangers, which are always to be feared 
from officials of Roosevelt's type, are largely obviated by the demo- 
cratic customs of the country. He lives amid a people not afraid 
to tell him the whole truth, and every criticism reaches his ear. 
And there is another thing not less important: democracy forces 
every man into that line of activity for which the nation has elected 
him. A somewhat overactive mind like Roosevelt's has opinions 
on many problems, and his exceptional political position easily be- 
trays one at first into laying exceptional weight on one's own opin- 
ions about every subject. But here the traditions of the country 
have been decisive; it knows no President for general enlighten- 
ment, but only a political leader whose private opinions outside poli- 
tics are of no special importance. In this as in other respects Roose- 
velt has profited by experience. There is no doubt that when he 
came to the White House he underestimated the power of Senators 
and party leaders. The invisible obstructions, which were some- 
how hidden behind the scenes, have no doubt given him many 
painful lessons. In his endeavour to realize so many heartfelt 
convictions, he has often met with arbitrary opposition made 
simply to let the new leader feel that obstructions can be put in his 
way unless he takes account of all sorts of factors. But these 
warnings have really done him no harm, for Roosevelt was not the 
man to be brought by them into that party subserviency which had 



8o THE AMERICANS 

satisfied McKinley. They merely held him back from that reck- 
less independence which is so foreign to the American party spirit, 
and which in the later years of Cleveland's administration had 
worked so badly. Indeed, one might say that the outcome has 
been an ideal synthesis of Cleveland's consistency and McKinley's 
power of adaptation. 

For the fanatics of party Roosevelt has been, of course, too in- 
dependent, while to the opponents of party he has seemed too 
yielding. Both of these criticisms have been made, in many 
different connections, since everywhere he has stood on a watch 
tower above the fighting lines of any party. When in the strug- 
gles between capital and labour he seriously took into account 
the just grievances of the working-man he was denounced as a 
socialist. And when he did not at once stretch out his hand to 
demolish all corporations he was called a servant of the stock ex- 
change. When he appointed officials in the South without refer- 
ence to their party allegiance, the Republicans bellowed loudly; 
and when he did not sanction the Southern outrages against the 
negro the Democrats became furious. When everything is con- 
sidered, however, he has observed the maxim of President Hayes, 
"He best serves his party who serves his country best." 

In this there has been another factor at work. Roosevelt may 
not have had McKinley's broad experience in legislative matters, 
nor have known the reefs and bars in the Congressional sea, but 
for the executive office, for the administration of civil service and 
the army and navy, for the solution of federal, civil, and municipal 
problems his years of study and travel have been an ideal prepara- 
tion. Behind his practical training he has had the clear eye of the 
historian. The United States had their proverbial good luck 
when the Mephistos of the Republican party prevailed on the 
formidable Governor of New York to undertake the thankless 
office of Vice-President. If this nomination had gone as the better 
politicians wished it to go, the death of McKinley would have 
placed a typical politician at the helm instead of the best Presi- 
dent which the country has had for many years. 



The President is closely associated with the Cabinet, and he is 
entirely free in his choice of advisers. There is no question here 



THE PRESIDENT 8i 

of the influence of majorities on the composition of the ministry, 
as there is in England or France. In this way Cleveland, in his 
second term, had already announced by his choice of cabinet min- 
isters that he should go his own ways regardless of the wire-pullers 
of the party. He gave the Secretaryship of War to his former 
private secretary; the position of Postmaster-General to his former 
partner in law; the Secretaryship of Justice to a jurist who had 
never taken any interest in politics. His Secretary of the Interior 
was a personal friend, and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs a man 
who shortly before had left the ranks of the Republican party to 
become a Cleveland Democrat. The Secretaryships of Commerce 
and the Treasury were the sole cabinet positions which were given 
to well-known party leaders. The very opposite was to have been 
expected from a man of McKinley's disposition. Even when he 
became the chief executive of the country he remained the devoted 
servant of his party, and just as his success was owing in large part 
to his sympathetic relations with all the important factions in Con- 
gress, so the success of his Cabinet was due to his having chosen 
none but men who had enjoyed for a long time the confidence of 
the party. 

Roosevelt did at the outset an act of political piety when he 
left the Cabinet, for the time being, unchanged. It was at the 
same time a capital move toward reassuring public opinion, 
which had stood in fear of all sorts of surprises, owing to his im- 
petuous temperament. Slowly, however, characteristic readjust- 
ments were made and a new cabinet office was created under his 
administration, the Secretaryship of Commerce and Labour. This 
was entrusted to Cortelyou, who had been the private secretary of 
two presidents, and who, through his tact, discretion, and industry, 
had contributed not a little to their practical success. 

The highest minister in order of rank is the Secretary of State, 
who is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and who, in the case 
that both the President and Vice-President are unable to com- 
plete their term of office, assumes the Presidency. He is re- 
sponsible for the diplomatic and consular representation of the 
United States and he alone negotiates with representatives of 
foreign powers at Washington; moreover, it is through him that 
the President treats with the separate states of the Union. He 
publishes the laws passed by Congress and adds his signature to 



82 THE AMERICANS 

all of the President's official papers. He is, next to the President, 
so thoroughly the presiding spirit of the administration that it is 
hardly a mistake to compare him to the Chancellor of the German 
Empire. It happens at the moment that the present incumbent 
makes this comparison still more apt, since John Hay, the present 
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, resembles Count von Billow in sev- 
eral w^ays. Both have been in former years closely affiliated to the 
national heroes of the century, both have gotten their training in 
various diplomatic positions, both are resourceful, accommodat- 
ing, and brilliant statesmen, and both have a thoroughly modern 
temperament, intellectual independence bred of a broad view of 
the world, both are apt of speech and have fine literary feeling. 
Hay was the secretary of President Lincoln until Lincoln's death, 
and has been secretary of the embassies in France, Austria, and 
Spain, has taken distinguished place in party politics, has been 
Assistant Secretary of State, Ambassador to England, and in 1898 
was placed at the head of foreign affairs. His " Ballads," " Castil- 
ian Days," and "Life of Lincoln," call to mind his literary repu- 
tation. 

\How far foreign affairs are really conducted by the President 
and how far by the Secretary of State is, of course, hard to say, but, 
at any rate, the representatives of foreign powers treat officially 
only with the Secretary, who has his regular days for diplomatic 
consultation, so that the relations of foreign representatives to the 
President, after their first official introduction, remain virtually 
social. Yet all important measures are undertaken only with the 
approval of the President, and on critical questions of international 
politics the whole cabinet deliberates together. Hay's personal 
influence came clearly before the public eye especially in his ne- 
gotiations regarding the Central American canal, and in his han- 
dling of the Russian and Asiatic problems. Particularly after the 
Chinese imbroglio he came to be generally reputed the most 
astute and successful statesman of the day. It will probably not 
be far wrong to ascribe such tendencies in American politics as are 
friendly toward England chiefly to his influence. On the other 
hand, he is supposed to feel no special leanings toward Germany. 

The Secretary of the Treasury is next in rank. He administers 
the Federal finances to all intents and purposes like a large banker, 
or, rather, like a bank president who should have Congress for his 



THE PRESIDENT 83 

board of directors. Since customs and international revenues are 
levied by the Federal Government, and not by the several states, 
and since the expenditures for the army and navy, for the postal 
service, and for the Federal Government itself, the national debt 
and the mints come under Federal administration, financing op- 
erations are involved which are so extensive as to have a deciding 
influence on the banking system of the entire country. 

The third official in rank is the Secretary of War, vs^hile the Sec- 
retary of the Navy holds only the sixth place, with the Attorney- 
General and the Postmaster-General in between. The General 
Staff of the Secretary of War, which was organized in 1903, is com- 
posed of officers of high rank, although the Secretary himself is a 
civilian. In the case of the army, as well as of the navy, the 
functions of the secretary are decidedly more important than 
those, say, of a Prussian Minister. They concern not only ad- 
ministration, but also, in case of war, are of decisive weight on the 
movements of all the forces, since the President as commander-in- 
chief has to act through these ministers. Elihu Root was for al- 
most five years Secretary of War; and on his retirement in Jan- 
uary, 1904, Roosevelt declared : " Root is the greatest man who has 
appeared in our times in the public life of any country, either in 
the New World or the Old." 

The position of Attorney-General is less comparable with a 
corresponding office in the German state. This minister of the 
President has no influence on the appointment of judges or the ad- 
ministration of the courts. The official representative of justice 
in the Cabinet is really an exalted lawyer, who is at the same 
time the President's legal adviser. So far as appointments to 
office go, the Secretary of the Post Office Department has prac- 
tically no influence regarding those who are under him, since the 
tremendous number of postal officials of any considerable im- 
portance have to be confirmed in their appointments by the 
Senate, so that the appointing power has virtually gone over to 
that body. On the other hand, the whole postal service is under 
his direction; but it is here not to be forgotten that the American 
railroads and, what the German may think more extraordinary, 
the telegraph lines, are not government property. 

The Secretary of the Interior is merely a name for a great many 
unrelated administrative functions. In the long list of duties 



84 THE AMERICANS 

which fall to this office comes education, although this seemingly 
most important responsibility is really rather slight, since all educa- 
tional matters fall to the separate states and the Federal Govern- 
ment has nothing to do but to give out statistics and information, 
to collect material, and to offer advice. The national Bureau of 
Education is not empowered to institute any practical changes, A 
much more important function, practically, of the Secretary of the 
Interior is the Pension Bureau, since the United States pay yearly 
about ^138,000,000 in pensions. Other divisions are the Patent 
Office, which grants every year about 30,000 patents, the Railroad 
Bureau, the Indian Bureau, and the Geological Survey. The 
Secretary of Agriculture has not only certain duties connected with 
agriculture, but is also in charge of the Weather Bureau, and of 
zoological, botanical, and chemical institutes, and especially of 
the large number of scientific departments which indirectly serve 
the cause of agriculture. Last in rank comes the recently created 
Secretary of Commerce and Labour, who has charge of the Cor- 
poration Bureau, the Labour Bureau, the Census Bureau, and 
the Bureaus of Statistics, Immigration, and Fisheries. 

There are some 240,000 positions under the direction of these 
ministers; and all of these, from ambassadors to letter-carriers, 
are in the national service and under the appointment of the 
President, and are entirely independent of the government of the 
separate states in which the offices are held. 



CHAPTER FOUR 

Congress 

THERE is an avenue which leads from the White House in 
a direct line to the Capitol, the dominating architectural fea- 
ture of Washington. On walking up the broad terraces one 
comes first to the great central hall, over which rises the dome; 
to the right one passes through the Hall of Fame and comes finally 
to the uncomfortably large parliamentary chamber, in which 386 
Representatives sit together as the direct delegates of the people. 
Going from the central hall to the left one passes by the apart- 
ments of the Supreme Court, and comes finally to the attractive 
room in which the ninety state delegates hold their sessions. The 
room on the right is called the "House," on the left the Senate; 
both together make up Congress, the law-giving body of the 
nation. When the thirteen states which first formed the Union 
in the year 1778 adopted the Articles of Federation, it was in- 
tended that Congress should be a single body, in which each state, 
although it might be represented by a varying number of members, 
should nevertheless have the right to only one vote. Nine years 
later, however, the final Constitution of the United States replaced 
this one simple system by dividing Congress into Senate and 
House of Representatives, doing this simply by analogy with the 
traditions of the state governments. Pennsylvania was the only 
state which had but one legislative chamber, while the others had 
taken over from England the system of double representation and 
had carried out the English tradition, although probably nothing 
was further from their intention than to divide their legislators 
into lords and commoners. 

For the United States the dual division inevitably seemed the 
shortest way to balance off conflicting requirements. On the one 
side every state, even the smallest, should have the same preroga- 



86 THE AMERICANS 

tives and equal influence: on the other side, every citizen must 
count as much as every other, so that the number of inhabitants 
must be duly represented. It was necessary, therefore, to create 
one chamber in which all States should have the same number of 
Representatives, and another in which every delegate should rep- 
resent an equal number of voters. Furthermore, on the one 
hand a firm and conservative tradition was to be built up, while 
on the other the changing voice of the people was to be reflected. 
It was, therefore, necessary to remove one chamber from popu- 
lar election and leave it to the appointment of the separate state 
legislatures. It was also necessary to put the age for candidacy 
for this chamber high, and to make the term of office rather long, 
and finally to contrive that at any one time only a fraction of the 
numbers should be replaced, so that a majority of the members 
could carry on their work undisturbed. The other chamber, 
however, was to be completely replaced by frequent direct popu- 
lar elections. Thus originated the two divisions of Congress 
which so contrast in every respect. A comparison with Euro- 
pean double legislative systems is very natural, and yet the 
Senate is neither a Bundestag, nor a Herrenhaus, nor a House 
of Lords; and the House of Representatives is fundamentally dif- 
ferent from the Reichstag. One who wishes to understand the 
American system must put aside his recollections of European 
institutions, since nothing except emphasis on the difference be- 
tween the American and European legislatures will make clear 
the traditions of Washington. 

As has been said, the Senators are representatives of the several 
states; every state sends two. The State of New York, with its 
seven million inhabitants, has no more representatives in the 
Senate than the State of Wyoming, which has less than one hun- 
dred thousand inhabitants. Every Senator is elected for six 
years by the law-giving body of the individual state. Every sec- 
ond year a third of the Senators retire, so that the Senate as a whole 
has existed uninterruptedly since the foundation of the Union. 
Curiously enough, however, the Senators vote independently, and 
thus it often happens that the two Senators from one State cast 
opposite votes. A candidate for the Senate has to be thirty 
years old. 

The members of the House are elected every two years and by 



CONGRESS 8y 

direct popular vote. The number of delegates is here not pre- 
scribed by the Constitution. It is constantly modified on the 
basis of the ten-year census, since every state is entitled to a num- 
ber of delegates proportionate to its population. While there 
were slaves, who could not vote, the slave states nevertheless ob- 
jected to the diminution in the number of their representatives, 
due to the fact that the negro was not considered an inhabitant, 
and it was constitutionally provided to compute the number of 
Representatives on the basis that every slave was equivalent to 
three-fifths of a man. To-day neither colour nor race constitution- 
ally affects the right to vote. On the other hand, the nation as 
such does not concern itself to consider who is allowed to vote, but 
leaves this completely to the different states, and requires only 
that for the national elections in every state the same provisions 
are observed which are made for the elections to the state legis- 
lature. Moreover, it is left to every state in what wise it shall 
choose the allotted number of Representatives at Washington. 
Thus, for instance, in those four Western States in which women 
are allowed to vote for members of the legislature, women have 
also the right to vote for Congressmen. 

The first House of Representatives had 65 members, while 
the House of 1902 had 357, and the political centre of gravity 
of the country has so shifted that the states which originally 
made up Congress send now only 137 of the members. The 
number of delegates has recently been increased to 386. The 
age of candidacy is 25, and while a Senator must have lived in 
the country for nine years, only seven years are required of a 
Representative. 

The differences in the conditions of election are enough to bring 
it about that the personal make-up of the two Houses, as had been 
originally intended, give very different impressions. The dignity of 
being Senator is granted to but few, and to these for a long time, 
and as it is bestowed by that somewhat small circle of the legisla- 
tors of the state, is naturally accounted the highest political honour; 
it is thus desired by the most successful leaders of public life and 
the most respected men of the several states. The ideal con- 
dition is, to be sure, somewhat frustrated, since in reality the 
members of a state legislature are generally pledged, when 
tliey themselves are elected, to support this or that particular 



88 THE AMERICANS 

candidate for the Senate. Thus the general body of voters 
exerts its influence after all pretty directly; and, moreover, this 
distinction depends not a little, in the West and especially in the 
thinly populated states, on the possession of great v^ealth. Since, 
however, in these cases such wealth has generally been won by 
exceptional energy and keen insight, even in this way men come 
to Washington who are a good deal above the average voter, and 
who represent the most significant forces in American popular life 
earnestly, worthily, and intelligently. 

In the last Senate the average age of ninety Senators was sixty 
years, and seventeen were more than seventy years old. Sixty- 
one of them were jurists, eighteen were business men, three were 
farmers, and two had been journalists. As to the jurists, they 
are not hien who are still active as attorneys or judges. Gener- 
ally men are in question who went over early from the legal pro- 
fession into politics, and who have lived almost entirely in politics. 
Indeed, not a few of these lawyers who have become legislators 
have been for some years in commercial life at the head of great 
industrial or railroad corporations, so that the majority of jurists 
is no indication whatsoever of any legal petrifaction. All sides of 
American life are represented, and only such professions as that of 
the university scholar or that of the preacher are virtually exclud- 
ed because circumstances make it necessary for the Senator to 
spend six winters in Washington. It will be seen that politics 
must have become a life profession with most of these men, since 
many are elected four and five times to the Senate. Among the 
best known Senators, Allison, Hoar, Cockrell, Piatt, Morgan, 
Teller, and several others have been there for more than twenty- 
five years. Of course the conservative traditions of the Senate are 
better preserved by such numerous re-elections than by any possi- 
ble external provision. 

It is also characteristic of the composition of the Senate that, 
with a single exception, no Senator was born on the European 
continent. Nelson, the Senator from Minnesota, came from Nor- 
way when he was a boy. Thus in this conservative circle there is 
little real representation of the millions who have immigrated to 
this country. In the autobiographies of the Senators, two re- 
late that, although they were born in America, they are of German 
descent; these are Wellington, the Senator from Maryland, and 



CONGRESS 89 

Dietrich, the Senator from Nebraska. The Senators are noto- 
riously well-to-do, and have been called the "Millionaires' Club "; 
and yet one is not to suppose that these men have the wealth of the 
great industrial magnates. Senator Clarke, of Montana, whose 
property is estimated at one hundred million dollars, is the single 
one who, according to American standards, could be called rich. 
Most of the others have merely a few modest millions, and for 
many the expensive years of residence in Washington are a decided 
sacrifice. And, most of all, it is certain that the Senators who are 
materially the least well-off are among the most respected and in- 
fluential. The most highly educated member of the Senate would 
probably be the young delegate from Massachusetts, the historian 
Lodge, who is the President's most intimate friend; but the most 
worthy and dignified member has been the late Senator from 
Massachusetts, the impressive orator. Hoar. 

It is a matter of course that the social level of the House qf Rep- 
resentatives lies considerably lower. Here it is intended that 
the people shall be represented with all their diverse interests and 
ambitions. The two-thirds majority of lawyers is found, how- 
ever, even here; of the 357 members of the last House, 236 had 
been trained in law, 63 were business men, and 17 were farmers. 
The House is again like the Senate, since, in spite of the fact that 
the membership is elected entirely anew, it remains in good part 
made up of the same people. The fifty-eighth Congress contained 
250 members who had already sat in the fifty-seventh. About 
one-tenth of the Representatives have been in the House ten years. 
The general physiognomy is, however, very different from that of 
the Senate. It is more youthful, less serene and distinguished, 
and more suggestive of ordinary business. The average age is 
forty-eight years, while there are some men under thirty. The 
total impression, in spite of several exceptions, suggests that these 
men come from the social middle class. However, it is from just 
this class that the notably clear-cut personalities of America have 
come; and the number of powerful and striking countenances to 
be seen in the House is greater than that m the German Reichstag. 
The Representatives, like Senators, have a salary of ^5,000 and 
their travelling expenses. 

What is now the actual work of these two chambers in Congress, 
and how do they carry it on .'' The work cannot be wholly sep- 



go THE AMERICANS 

arated from its manner of performance. Perhaps the essentials of 
this peculiar task and method could be brought together as 
follows: on the basis of committee reports, Congress decides 
whether or not to accept bills which have been proposed by its 
members. This is indeed the main part of the story. Congress 
thus passes on proposed bills; its function is purely legislative, and 
involves nothing of an executive nature. On the other hand, these 
bills have to be proposed by members of Congress; they cannot be 
received from the President or from members of his Cabinet. 
Thus the Executive has no influence in the law-giving body. The 
method of transacting business, finally, consists of laying the em- 
phasis on the deliberations in committees, and it is there that the 
fate of each bill is virtually settled. The committee determines 
whether the proposed measure shall come before the whole House; 
and both House and Senate have finally to decide about accepting 
the measure. Each of these points requires further comment. 

So far as the separation of the legislative and executive functions 
of the government is concerned, it is certainly exaggeration to say 
that it is complete, as has often been said. There is, to be sure, a 
somewhat sharper distinction than is made in Germany, where the 
propositions of the Executive form the basis of legislative activity; 
and yet even in the United States the ultimate fate of every meas- 
ure is dependent on the attitude taken by the President. We have 
seen that a bill which is sent by Congress to the President can be 
returned with his veto, and in that case becomes a law only when 
on a new vote in both Houses it receives a two-thirds majority. A 
law which obtains only a small majority in either one of the 
Houses can thus easily be put aside by the Executive. 

On the other hand. Congress has a very important participation 
in executive functions, more particularly through the Senate, inas- 
much as all appointments of federal officers and the ratification of 
all treaties require the approval of the Senate. International poli- 
tics, therefore, make it necessary- for the President to keep closely 
in touch with at least the Senate, and in the matter of appoint- 
ments the right of the Senators to disapprove is so important that 
for a large number of local positions the selection has been actually 
left entirely to the Senators of the respective states. The Con- 
stitution gives to Congress even a jurisdictional function, in the 
case that any higher federal officers abuse their office. When 



I 



CONGRESS gi 

there is a suspicion of this, the House of Representatives brings its 
charges and the Senate conducts the trial. The last time that 
this great machinery was in operation was in 1876, when the Sec- 
retary of War, Belknap, was charged and acquitted; thus suspicion 
has not fallen on any of the higher officials for twenty-eight years. 

The separation of the Legislative from the Executive is most 
conspicuously seen in the fact that no member of the Cabinet has 
a seat in Congress. At the beginning of the Congressional session 
the President sends his message, in which he is privileged polit- 
ically to pour out his entire heart. Yet he may only state his 
hopes and desires, and may not propose definite bills. The 
Cabinet ministers, however, are responsible solely to the Presi- 
dent, and in no wise to Congress, where they have no right to dis- 
cuss measures either favourably or unfavourably. They do not 
come into contact with Congress. This is in extreme contrast with 
the situation in England, where the ministers are leaders of the 
Parliamentary party. The American sees in this a strong point 
of his political system, and even such a man as the former am- 
bassador to Germany, Andrew D. White, who admired so much of 
what he saw there, considers the ministerial benches in the German 
and French representative chambers a mistake. It occasions, he 
says, a constant and vexatious disagreement between the dele- 
gates of the people and the ministers, which disturbs the order 
and effectiveness of parliamentary transactions. The legislative 
work should be transacted apart, and the popular representatives 
ought to have only one another to take care of. 

We must not, however, understand that there are practically no 
relations existing between Congress and the ministry. A con- 
siderable part of the bills, which have to be discussed, consist, of 
course, in appropriations for public expenditures, so far as these 
come out of the federal rather than the state treasuries. Such 
appropriations included at the last time 1^139,000,000 for pensions, 
^138,000,000 for the post office, 1^91,000,000 for the army, $78,- 
000,000 for the navy, $26,000,000 for rivers and harbours, and so 
on; making in all $800,000,000 for the annual appropriations, be- 
sides $253,000,000 for special contracts. Thus the total sum of 
appropriations in one session of Congress amounted to over 
$1,000,000,000, in America called a billion. This authorized ap- 
propriation has to be made on the basis of proposals, submitted 



g2 THE AMERICANS 

by the members of Congress; but it is a matter of course that every 
single figure of such propositions has to come originally from the 
bureau of the army or navy, or whatever department is con- 
cerned, if it is to serve as the basis of discussion. Thus while the 
Executive presents to Congress no proposals for the budget, it 
hands over to the members of Congress so empowered the whole 
material; and this is, after all, not very different from the Euro- 
pean practice. However, the voice of the Executive is indeed not 
heard when the budget is under debate. The members of Con- 
gress who are to receive the ministerial propositions through 
mediation of the Treasury, must belong to the House; for one of 
the few advantages which the House of Representatives has over 
the Senate is that it has to initiate all bills of appropriation. This 
is a remnant of the fundamental idea that all public expenditures 
should be made only at the instance of the taxpayers themselves, 
wherefore the directly elected members of the House are more 
fitted for this than are the Senators, who are indirectly elected. 
This single advantage is less than it looks to be, since the Senate 
may amend at will all bills of appropriation that it receives from 
the House. 

Thus every measure which is ever to become law must be pro- 
posed by members of Congress. One can see that this privilege 
of proposing bills is utilized to the utmost, from the simple fact 
that during every session some fifteen thousand bills are brought 
out. We may here consider in detail the way in which the House 
transacts its affairs. It is clear that if more than three hundred 
voluble politicians are set to the task of deliberating in a few 
months on fifteen thousand laws, including all proposed appro- 
priations, that a perfect babel of argument will arise which can 
lead to no really fruitful result, unless sound traditions, strict rules 
and discipline, and autocratic leadership hold this chaotic body 
within bounds. The American instinct for organization intro- 
duced indeed long ago a compact orderliness. Here belongs first 
of all that above-mentioned committee system, which in the House 
is completed by the unique institution of the Speaker. But one 
thing we must constantly bear in mind: the whole background of 
Congressional doings is the two-party system. If the House or the 
Senate were to break out in the prismatic variegation of the Ger- 
man parliamentary parties, no speaker and no system of com- 



CONGRESS gs 

mittees would be able to keep the elements in hand. It is, after 
all, the party in majority which guarantees order, moulds the com- 
mittees into effective machines, and lends to the Speaker his 
extraordinary influence. 

The essential feature of the whole apparatus lies in the fact that 
a bill cannot come up before the House until it has been deliber- 
ated in committee. The chairman of the committee then pre- 
sents it personally at some meeting. The presiding officer, the so- 
called Speaker, exerts in this connection a threefold influence; 
firstly, he appoints the members of all the committees, of which, 
for instance, there were in the last Congress sixty-three. The 
most important, and, therefore, the largest, of these committees 
are those on appropriations, agriculture, banking, coinage, for- 
eign and Indian affairs, interstate and foreign commerce, pen- 
sions, the post office, the navy, railroads, rivers and harbours, 
patents, and finance. Both the majority and minority parties are 
represented in every committee, and its chairman has almost un- 
limited control in its transaction of business. All members of the 
more important committees are experienced men, who have been 
well schooled in the traditions of the House. 

The Speaker is allowed further to decide as to what committee 
each bill shall be referred. In many cases, of course, there is no 
choice; but it not seldom happens that there are several possibili- 
ties, and the decision between them often determines the fate of 
the bill. In the third place, the Speaker, as chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Rules, decides what reports, of those which have been so 
far prepared by the committees, shall come up for discussion at 
each meeting of the House. As soon as the committee has agreed 
on recommendations, its report is put on the calendar; but whether 
it then comes up for debate in the House depends on a good many 
factors. In the first place, of course, many of the proposed mat- 
ters take naturally first rank, as for instance, the appropriations. 
The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations is given the 
floor whenever he asks for it; thus there are express trains on this 
Congressional railroad which have the right-of-way before suburb- 
an trains, and then, too, there are special trains which take prefer- 
ence before everything else. But aside from such committee re- 
ports as are especially privileged, a very considerable opportunity 
of selection exists among those which remain. 



P4 THE AMERICANS 

It is here that the really unlimited influence of the Speaker 
comes in. He is in no way required to give the floor to the com- 
mittees which ask for it first. If the chairman of the committee 
is not called on by the Speaker for his report, he is said to be not 
"noticed" and he is helpless. Of course, whether he is noticed or 
not depends on the most exact prearrangement. If now a bill is 
finally reported to the House, it is still not allowed an endless de- 
bate, for the Speaker is once more empowered to appoint a par- 
ticular time when the debate must end, and thereby he is able to 
come around any eff'orts at obstruction. If, however, the minority 
wishes to make itself heard by raising the point of no quorum, then 
not only those who are voting, but all those who are present in the 
House, are counted, and if these are not enough the delinquents 
can be hunted out and forced to come in. But in most cases there 
is little or no debate, and the resolutions of the committee are ac- 
cepted by the House without a word. In certain of the most im- 
portant cases, as in matters of appropriation or taxation, the 
House constitutes itself a so-called committee of the whole. Then 
the matter is seriously discussed under a special chairman, as at the 
session of an ordinary committee. Even here it is not the custom 
to make long speeches, and the members are often contented with 
a short sketch of their arguments, and ask permission to have the 
rest published in the Congressional Report. The speeches which 
thus have never been delivered are printed and distributed in in- 
numerable copies through the district from which that speaker 
comes and elsewhere as well. 

Thus if an ordinary Representative proposes a measure, which 
perhaps expresses the local wishes of his district, such a bill goes 
first to the Secretary and from him to the Speaker. He refers it to 
a special committee, and at the same time every Representative 
receives printed copies of it. The committee decides whether the 
bill is worth considering. If it has the good fortune to be deliber- 
ated by the committee it is often so amended by the members that 
little remains of its original substance. If it then has the further 
good fortune to be accepted by the committee, it comes on the 
House calendar, and waits until the Committee on Rules puts 
it on the order of the day. If it then has the exceptional good for- 
tune of being read to the House it has a fairly good chance of being 
accepted. 



CONGRESS gs 

But of course its pilgrimage is not ended here. It passes next 
to the Senate, and goes through much the same treatment once 
more; first a committee, then the quorum. If it does not there 
come up before the quorum, it is lost in spite of everything; but if 
it does finally come up, after all hindrances, it may be amend- 
ed once more by the Senate. If this happens, as is likely, its con- 
sideration is begun all over again. A composite committee from 
both Houses considers all amendments, and if it cannot come to an 
agreement the measures are doomed. If the committee does 
agree, the close of the session of Congress may intervene and pre- 
vent its last hearing in the House, and in the next Congress the 
v^hole process is repeated. But if a measure has passed through 
all these dangers and been approved by both Houses, the Presi- 
dent then has the opportunity to put his veto on it. 

Thus it comes about that hardly a tenth part of the bills v^hich 
are introduced each year ever become laws, and that they are 
sifted out and amended surely and speedily. Indeed, it can hardly 
be doubted that a large part of the fifteen thousand bills are intro- 
duced out of personal consideration for constituents, or even out of 
less worthy motives, with no expectation that they will possibly be 
accepted. Moreover, the popular tribunal, the House, spares it- 
self too great pains, because it knows that the Senate will certainly 
amend all its provisions; and the Senate indulges itself in voting 
unnecessary favours to constituents because it relies on their ne- 
gation by the House. 

The Senate works on fundamentally the same plan. When a 
Senator brings his proposition, it goes likewise to the appropriate 
committee, then is read before a quorum, and is passed on to the 
other chamber. Nevertheless, there is a considerable difference 
in procedure; the House behaves like a restless popular gathering, 
while the Senate resembles a conference of diplomats. The 
House is a gigantic room, in which even the best orators can 
hardly make themselves heard, and where hundreds are writing or 
reading newspapers without paying any attention to the man who 
speaks. But the Senate is a parliamentary chamber, where a 
somewhat undue formality prevails. A strict discipline has to be 
observed in the House in order to preserve its organization, while 
the Senate needs no outward discipline because the small circle of 
elderly gentlemen transacts its business with perfect decorum. 



g6 THE AMERICANS 

Thus the Senate tolerates no Speaker over it, no president with 
discretionary powers. In the Senate both parties have the right 
to appoint the members of the committees. The Chairman of 
the Senate must also not fail to notice any one who asks for the 
floor; whoever wishes to speak has every chance, and this freedom 
implies of course that the debates shall not be arbitrarily termi- 
nated by the Chairman. A debate can be closed only by unani- 
mous consent. The influence of the Chairman of the Senate is, 
therefore, only a shadow beside that of the Speaker, and since the 
Chairman is not elected by the Senate itself, but is chosen directly 
by the people in the person of the Vice-President of the United 
States, it may happen that this Chairman belongs to the party in 
minority, and that he has practically no influence at all. Conform- 
ably with the extreme formality and courtesy of the Senate, majori- 
ties are counted on the basis of the votes actually cast, and not, as 
in the House, on the basis of members actually present. For both 
Houses alike it is possible for those who intend to be absent to 
be paired off beforehand, so that if one absentee has announced 
himself for, and another against, a certain bill, they can both be 
counted as having voted. 

It is clear what the consequences of this unlimited exchange of 
Senatorial courtesy must be; the concessions in outward form 
must lead immediately to compromises and tacit understandings. 
If a debate can be closed only by unanimous agreement, it is pos- 
sible for a single opposing politician to obstruct the law-making 
machinery. A handful of opponents can take the stand for weeks 
and block the entire Senate. Such obstructionist policy has to be 
prevented at any cost, and therefore on all sides and in every least 
particular friendly sympathy must be preserved. Of course, the 
opposition between the two parties cannot be obviated; so much 
the more, then, it is necessary for each man to be bound by personal 
ties to every other, and to feel sure of having a free hand in his own 
special interests so long at least as he accords the same right to 
others in theirs. Thus, merely from the necessity of preserving 
mutual good feeling, it too often happens that the other members 
close their eyes when some willing Senator caters to local greed or 
to the special wishes of ambitious persons or corporations, by 
proposing a Congressional bill. 

This "Senatorial courtesy" is most marked in the matter of the 



CONGRESS gf 

appointment of officials, where matters go smoothly only because 
it has been agreed that no proposals shall be made without the ap- 
proval of the Senators of the state concerned. Every Senator 
knows that if to-day one local delegate is outvoted, the rebellion 
may to-morrow be directed against another; and thus many a 
doubtful appointment, given as hush money or as a reward for 
mean political services, is approved with inward displeasure by 
courteous colleagues merely in order to save the principle of indi- 
vidual omnipotence. There is no doubt that in this way the in- 
dividual Senator comes to have much more power than does a 
single Representative. The latter is really the member of a party, 
with no special opportunities for satisfying his individual wishes; 
while the Senator may have his personal points of view, and is 
really an independent factor. 

If to-day the Senate, contrary to the expectation of former 
times^ really plays a much more important role before the public 
than the House, this is probably not because more important 
functions are given to the Senate, but because it is composed of 
persons of whom every one has peculiar significance in the politi- 
cal situation, while the House is nothing but a mass-meeting 
with a few leaders. This increased importance before the public 
eye works back again on the Senator's opinion of himself, and the 
necessary result is a steady increase in the Senate's aspirations and 
the constant growth of its rights. Perhaps the most characteristic 
exhibition of this has been the gradual evolution of the part 
taken by the Senate in the matter of foreign treaties. The 
Constitution requires the ratification of the Senate, and the original 
construction was that the Administration should present a treaty 
all made out, which the Senate had to accept or reject as it stood. 
But soon the Senate arrogated to itself the right to amend treaties, 
and then it came about that the Senate would never accept a 
treaty without injecting a few drops of its own diplomatic wisdom. 
It might be that these would be merely a change of wording, but 
just enough to let the President feel the Senatorial power. The 
result has been that the treaties that are now presented to the 
Senate are called nothing but proposals. 

Looking behind the scenes one discovers that at bottom, even in 
the Senate, only a few have real influence. The more recently ap- 
pointed Senators earn their spurs in unimportant committees, and 



p8 THE AMERICANS 

even if they get into more important ones they are constrained by 
tradition to fall in line behind the more experienced members. In 
the House there is half a dozen, and in the Senate perhaps a 
dozen men who shape the politics of the country. Here, as in all 
practical matters, the American is ready to submit to an oligarchi- 
cal system so long as he knows that the few in question de- 
rive their power from the free vote of the many. In fact nothing 
but oligarchy is able to satisfy the profoundly conservative feeling 
of the American. Behind the scenes one soon discovers also that 
the Senatorial courtesy, which neutralizes the party fanaticism and 
encourages compromises to spring up like mushrooms, still leaves 
room for plenty of fighting; and even intrigue thrives better on 
this unctuous courtesy than in the coarser soil of the lower house. 
The sanctified older Senators, such as Allison, Frye, Piatt, Aldrich, 
and Hale, know where to place their levers so as to dislodge all op- 
position. Perhaps McKinley's friend, Hanna, whowas the grand 
virtuoso in Republican party technique, knew how always to over- 
come such political intrigue; but even Roosevelt's friend. Lodge, 
has sometimes found that the arbitrarily shaped traditions of the 
seniors weigh more than the most convincing arguments of the 
younger men. 

The moral level of Congress is, in the judgment of its best critics, 
rather high. The fate of every one of the thousands of bills is 
settled virtually in a small committee, and thus, time after time, 
the weal and woe of entire industries or groups of interests depend 
on one or two votes in the committee. The possible openings for 
corruption are thus much greater in Congress than in any other 
parliament, since no other has carried the committee system to 
such a point. In former times political scoundrels went around 
in great numbers through the hotels in Washington and even in 
the corridors of the Capitol trying to influence votes with every de- 
vice of bribery. To be sure, it is difficult to prove that there are no 
such hidden sins to-day; but it is the conviction of those who are 
best able to judge that nothing of the sort any longer exists. To 
be sure, there are still lobbyists in Washington, who as a matter 
of business are trying to w^ork either for or against impending 
bills, but direct bribery is no longer in question. On the slight- 
est suspicion the House itself proceeds to an investigation and 
appoints a committee, which has the right of collecting sworn 



CONGRESS gg 

testimony; and time after time these suspicions have been found 
to be unjust. 

A different verdict, hov^ever, v^ould have to be passed if only that 
delegate v^ere to be called morally upright who surveys every ques- 
tion from the point of viev^ of the welfare of the entire nation; for 
then indeed the purity of Congress will be by no means free from 
doubt. Few Americans, however, would recognize such a polit- 
ical standard. When great national questions come up for dis- 
cussion Congress has always shown itself equal to the occasion, 
and when the national honour is at stake, as it was during the 
Spanish War, party lines no longer exist; but when the daily drift 
of work has to be put through it is the duty of every man to uphold 
as obstinately as possible the interests of his constituency. Es- 
pecially the political interests of his party then become predom- 
inant, and, seen from a higher point of view, there are no doubt 
many sins committed in this direction. Many a measure is given 
its quietus by one party, not because of any real inexpediency, but 
simply in order to embarrass the other party, to tie up the Ad- 
ministration, and thus to weaken the hopes of that party at the 
next election. In recent years such party tactics on both sides 
have prevailed time after time. Most frequently it is the present 
minority, under its leader. Senator Gorman, which has resorted to 
this policy and held out against the most reasonable propositions 
of the Republicans, simply because these measures would have 
increased the Republican respect before the nation. 

On the other hand, party lines are all the time being broken 
through by these or those local interests, and any one observing the 
distribution of votes cast in the House will see clearly how, often- 
times, the parties mingle while the issue lies perhaps between two 
different geographical sections. When oleomargarine is the order 
of the day the representatives of the farming districts are lined up 
against those from industrial sections. If it is a question of get- 
ting Congress to approve the great irrigation measures, whole 
troops of Democrats hasten to forget that, according to their funda- 
mental principles, such an undertaking belongs to the state, and 
not to the federal, government; the representatives from all the 
Democratic states which are to be benefited by such irrigation, 
fall into sweet accord with the Republicans. Thus the party 
divisions are all the time being forgotten for the moment, and 

LOFC, 



100 THE AMERICANS 

it looks as if this weakening of party bonds were on the increase. 
By supporting his party principles each Congressman assists to- 
ward the next victory of his party, but by working for the interests 
of his locality he is surer of his own renomination. The require- 
ment that a candidate must reside in the district that elects him 
naturally strengthens his consideration for the selfish claims of 
his constituency. Thus it is only at notable moments that the 
popular representative stands above all parties; he generally 
stands pat with his own party, and if the voters begin to nod 
he may take his stand somewhat below the parties. 

Yet, on looking at Congress as a whole, one has the impression 
that it accomplishes a tremendous amount of work, and in a more so- 
ber, business-like, and efficient way than does any other parliament 
in the world. There is less talking against time; in fact, there is less 
talking of any kind, and because the Administration is not repre- 
sented at all there is less fighting. The transactions as a whole 
are therefore somewhat less exciting; a single Congressman has 
less opportunity to become personally famous. Yet no American 
would desire to introduce a ministerial bench at the Capitol, or to 
have the next Congress adopt Austrian, French, German, or 
English methods. 



CHAPTER FIVE 

^. 'Justice 

GOING from the hall beneath the central dome of the 
Capitol toward the Senate, in the left wing one passes by 
an extraordinary room, in which there is generally a crowd 
of people. The nine judges of the federal court, the Supreme 
Court of the United States, are sitting there in their black gowns, 
between Greek columns. The President and his Cabinet, the 
Senate, and the House of Representatives fill the American with a 
pride which is tempered by some critical judgment on this or that 
feature, or perhaps by a lively party dissatisfaction. But every 
American who is competent to judge looks on the Supreme Court 
with unqualified admiration. He knows very well that no force 
in the country has done more for the peace, prosperity, and dignity 
of the United States. In the constitutional make-up of the Fed- 
eral Government, the Supreme Court is the third division, and 
co-ordinate with the Legislative and the Executive departments. ^ 
The jurisprudence of a nation forms a totality; and therefore 
it will not do to discuss the work of the nine men sitting at the 
Capitol, without throwing at least a hasty glance at the administra- 
tion of justice throughout this enormous country. There is 
hardly anything more confusing to a European; and while the 
Englishman finds many features which are reminiscent of English 
law, the German stands helpless before the complicated situation. 
It is, most of all, the extreme diversity of methods which disquiets 
him. It will be quite impossible to give here even a superficial 
picture of the machinery of justice. A few hints must suffice at 
this point, while we shall consider many features in other connec- 
tions, especially in discussing social problems. 

The jurisprudence adopted by the United States comes from 
three sources. The average American, on being asked what the 



102 THE AMERICANS 

law of his country is, would say that it is "common law." If we 
except the State of Louisiana, which by a peculiarity has the 
Napoleonic Code, this reply suffices for a rough idea. But if a 
German, having in mind perhaps the two German law books, the 
penal and the civil codes, both of which he can put so easily into 
his pocket, were to ask after some formulation of the common law, 
he would be shown a couple of huge bookcases with several hun- 
dred stout volumes. Common law is not a law book, nor is it a 
system of abstract formulations, nor yet a codification of the pre- 
vailing ideas of justice. It is, in fact, the sum total of judicial 
decisions. The establishment of common law signifies that every 
new case as it comes up is decided in conformity with previous de- 
cisions. The earlier decision may be a bad one, and very much 
offend one's sense of justice; but if no superior authority has 
annulled it, it becomes historic law and determines the future 
course of things. American law came originally from the English. 
The early English colonists brought with them across the ocean 
the ideasof the English judges, and the states which have sprung 
up lately have taken their law from the thirteen original states. 
If to-day, in Boston or San Francisco, any one finds a piece of 
jewelry on the street and another snatches it from him, he can 
have the thief arrested, although the object found is not his prop- 
erty. The judge will decide that he has a right to the object 
which he has found until the original owner appears, and the judge 
will so decide because in the year 1722 a London chimney-sweep 
found a valuable ornament, out of which a jeweler later stole a 
precious stone; and the English judge decided in favour of the 
chimney-sweep. 

The disadvantages of such a system are obvious. Instead of a 
single book of law embodying the will of the nation, the decisions 
handed down by single insignificant judges in different parts of the 
world, decisions which originated under wholly other states of 
civilization and from other traditions, still have final authority. 
Again and again the judge has to adapt himself to old decisions, 
against which his sense of right morally rebels. Yet the deep, 
ethical motive behind this legal system is certainly plainly evi- 
dent. The Anglo-Saxon would say that a national code cannot 
be constructed arbitrarily and artificially. Its only source is in 
the careful, responsible decisions given down by the accredited 



JUSTICE 103 

representatives of the public will in actual disputes which have 
arisen. There is no right or wrong, he would say, until two per- 
sons disagree and make a settlement necessary, and the judge who 
decides the case creates the right with the help of his own con- 
science; but as soon as he has given his decision, and it is set aside 
by no higher authority, the principle of the decision becomes jus- 
tice for all times. Every day sees new formulations of justice, be- 
cause new conflicts between human wills are always arising and re- 
quire new settlements; but up to the moment when a decision is 
made there exist only two conflicting desires existing in the matter, 
but nothing which could be called justice. 

Although it seems at first sight as if a legal system, which is com- 
posed of previous decisions, would soon become antiquated and 
petrified, the Anglo-Saxon would say with firm conviction that 
just such justice is the only one which can be living, because it 
springs not out of rationalistic preconceptions, but from actual 
experience. The Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence is full of historical 
reality and of picturesque individuality. It has grown as organ- 
ically as language, and is, in the estimation of the Anglo-Saxon, as 
much superior to«a mere code as the ordinary speech of a people, 
in spite of all its historical inconsistencies, is superior to an 
artificially constructed speech like Volapiik. And he would find 
many other points of superiority. He would say, for instance, 
that this is the only system which gives to every man on the judge's 
bench the serious sense of his responsibility; for the judge knows 
that in every case which he decides, he settles not only the fortunes 
of James and John there present, but he influences for all times the 
conception of justice of the entire nation. He feels especially that 
the binding force of previous decisions reassures the public sense 
of right, and lends a continuity which could never be afforded by 
the theoretical formulations of an abstract code. 

Another factor must be taken into account. A judicial de- 
cision which is forgotten as quickly as the voice of the judge who 
speaks it, can never have so considerable an influence on the pub- 
lic mind as one which itself creates law. In one sense, to be sure, 
the German judge creates law too; the penal code sets wide limits 
to the punishment of a criminal, and within these limits the judge 
assigns a certain penalty. He does in a sense create the right for 
this particular case; but the characteristic diff"erence is, that in the 



104- THE AMERICANS 

German Empire no subsequent decision, is in the least affected by 
such preceding decision. The German judge finds justice pre- 
scribed for him and he is its servant, while the American makes it 
and is its master. This gives to the judicial utterance an his- 
torical weight and enduring significance, which contribute vastly 
toward keeping judicial doings in the focus of the public con- 
sciousness. 

The same is brought about in still another way. Since the de- 
cision of the judge is largely dependent on previous cases, the fate 
of the parties contending may depend on whether they are able to 
point to previous decisions which are favourable to their side. 
The layman cannot do this, and it falls to the counsel. In this 
wise a sphere of action is open to the American lawyer which is 
incomparably greater than that of any German Anwalt. The 
former has to concern himself not only with the case in hand, but 
he has to connect this concrete instance with the whole historic past. 
Thus the profession of the lawyer comes to have an inner impor- 
tance which is unknown to the European, and which in many 
cases necessarily exceeds the importance of the judge, since he is 
bound to comply with the decisions adduced by the counsels for 
both sides. The judges are selected from the ranks of lawyers, 
and are, therefore, brought up in the idea that law is composed of 
former decisions, and that the decisions of the bench are admira- 
ble only so far as they are consistent enough with the earlier ones 
to force the conviction and respect of the lawyers. Thus barristers 
and judges are entirely at one, and are together entrusted with the 
public sense of right, as it has developed itself historically, and as 
it is day by day added to and perpetuated, so that it shall be a 
never-failing source of quickening to the conscience of the masses. 

In the masses of the people, on the other hand, the natural ten- 
dencies are favourable anyhow for developing a lively sense of jus- 
tice. It is a necessity devolving naturally on the individualistic view 
of things. The protection of individual rights and the inviolability 
of the individual person, with all that belongs to it, are the individ- 
ualist's most vital concern. Many outward features of American 
life may seem, indeed, to contradict this, but any one who looks 
more deeply will see that everywhere the desire for justice is the 
essential trait of both the individual and the nation; and the public 
consciousness would rather endure the crassest absurdities and mis- 



JUSTICE 105 

understandings in public affairs than the least conscious violation 
in the administration of justice. Again and again important 
trials go to pieces on small technical errors, from which the 
severe sense of justice of the American is not able to free itself. 
The public is alv^ays willing to endure any hardship rather than 
to tolerate any maladministration of justice. 

On the finest square in Boston stands a large and magnificent 
hotel, erected by rich capitalists The building laws provide that 
structures facing that square shall not exceed a height of ninety 
feet; but in violation of the law certain cornices and balustrades 
were added to this building above the ninety-foot line, in order to 
give an artistic finish to the structure, and still to turn practically 
every inch allowed by law to account for rentals, which are high 
in so palatial a building. Every one agreed that this ornamental 
finish was highly decorative and satisfactory in the aesthetic 
sense, but that it must, nevertheless, be taken down, because it 
violated the law by some seven feet. The cornice and balustrades 
have, therefore, been demolished at great expense, and a hand- 
some structure has been made absolutely hideous — a veritable 
monstrosity. The best square in the city is disfigured, but every 
Bostonian looks on this building with gratification. Beautiful 
architectural detail may indeed have been sacrificed; but the 
public conscience has won, and it is on this that the nation 
rests. 

It is merely incidental that very much, and indeed much too 
much, of that which the Germans account matters of justice, is 
relegated by the American point of view to other tribunals; some, 
for instance, are held to be political questions, and thus it often ap- 
pears to the foreigner as if there had been a violation of justice 
where really there has been only some political abuse. But mat- 
ters of that sort loom up whenever any nation tries to form an 
opinion about another. In Germany, indeed, the American 
seems to see many violations of justice, where the German would 
find only an historically established social or political abuse. 

As we have said, American justice is based on the decisions 
handed down in earlier cases. But this is, after all, only one of 
the three sources of law. That form of law-making is also here 
recognized which in Europe is the only form; the law-making by 
the majority of the people's representatives. We have seen how 



io6 THE AMERICANS 

Congress passes every year hundreds of laws. Many of these are 
indeed special measures, with no universal application; not a few, 
however, are of very broad application and involve an unlimited 
number of possible instances. And just as the Congress of the 
United States, so also can the legislature of each state prescribe 
general regulations, applicable within the state. Such laws made by 
the legislature are technically called statutes. These are engrossed 
in the statute-books of the state, and supersede all opposed de- 
cisions which may then exist. The federal judge, like the judge 
in a special state, is therefore bound to earlier decisions only so 
far as these are not expressly annulled by statutes. 

Here we find one of the main reasons for the extraordinary com- 
plexities of the American law; forty-five legislatures are making 
laws for their several states, and in this way they of course give 
expression to the diversity of local needs and the varying grades 
of culture. At the same time, the principle of law, based on 
earlier decisions, is always combined with the principle of the 
statute-book. In the cases, both of the laws of Congress and those 
of the separate states, the judges who first come to apply the 
statutes in practice, are privileged to make their own interpretation; 
and here, too, the interpretation handed down in the judge's de- 
cision is valid for all future cases. 

In both the federal and state courts a legal action may be car- 
ried from the lower to the higher courts, and the decision of the 
highest tribunal becomes definitely law. The forty - five - fold 
diversity refers thus not merely to the statutes of the separate 
states, but also to the interpretations of those statutes which have 
been given by the upper courts of those states. 

The third source of law is the only one that prescribes abso- 
lute uniformity for all parts of the country. This is the Con- 
stitution of the United States. The Constitution must not be 
conceived as the creation of Congress; Congress was created by 
the Constitution. Therefore every provision of the Constitution 
is a higher law than any bill which Congress can pass, just as the 
law made by Congress is higher than the decision of any judge. 
No Congress can modify a clause of the Constitution. The assent 
of the entire people is necessary for such a revision. Congress can, 
however, propose an amendment to the Constitution, and a two- 
thirds majority in the Senate and the House suffice to bring the 



JUSTICE 107 

proposed change before the nation, to be voted on. It has then to 
be passed on by the forty-five state legislatures, and will become 
a law with the approval of three-quarters of the states. 

At first glance it seems as if this were a judicial machinery 
which would be far too complicated to work smoothly; it seems as 
if sources of friction had been arbitrarily devised, and as if con- 
tinual collisions between the authorities of the several systems 
would be inevitable. This is true in two instances especially; 
firstly, the judicial machinery, which carries out the federal laws, 
sometimes collides with that of the separate states. Then, sec- 
ondly, the complicated system of Constitutional provisions, de- 
vised a hundred years since, may interfere with the progressive 
measures of Congress or the separate states; and this must be a 
source of much uncertainty in law. These are the actual diffi- 
culties of a legal sort. Everything else, as for instance the enor- 
mous diversity of the laws in the separate states, is of course very 
inconvenient, but gives rise to no conflicts of principle. 

Neither of these two difficulties finds its counterpart in Ger- 
many. In no Prussian city is there a German tribunal side by 
side with the Prussian, no imperial judge beside the local judge; 
nor can one conceive of a conflict in the German Empire between 
the creators of the legal code and the law-givers who frame the 
provisions of the Constitution. This doubleness of the judicial 
officials is in every part of the Union, however, characteristic 
of the American system and necessary to it. The wonderful 
equilibrium between centripetal and centrifugal forces which 
characterizes the whole American scheme of things makes it 
impossible from the outset for either the whole Federation to 
become the sole administrator of justice, or for such administra- 
tion, on the basis of federal law, to be left entirely to the separate 
states. As a matter of course, a clear separation of jurisdiction 
has been necessary. The Constitution provides for this in a way 
clearly made necessary by the conditions under which the Federa- 
tion was formed. Justice in the army and navy, commercial poli- 
cies, and political relations with other countries; weights and 
measures, coinage, provisions, interstate commerce, and the postal 
system, the laws of patents and copyrights, of bankruptcy, and of 
naturalization, the laws of river and harbour, cases of treason, 
and much else are left to the Federation as a whole. While all 



io8 THE AMERICANS 

these matters fall naturally within the scope of federal law, there 
are, on the other hand, obvious reasons whereby certain classes 
of persons should be under the jurisdiction of the federal courts. 
These are, firstly, diplomatic ministers and consuls; secondly, 
either actual or legal parties when they belong in different states; 
thirdly, and most important, the states themselves. Wherever a 
state is party to an action, the Supreme Federal Court must hear 
the case and give the decision. On the other hand, the Consti- 
tution declares expressly that, wherever jurisdiction is not ex- 
plicitly conferred on the federal courts, it pertains to the individual 
states; therefore, much the larger part of criminal law belongs to 
the states, and so the laws of marriage and inheritance, of contract, 
property ownership, and much else. 

For the administration of cases within its jurisdiction, the Fed- 
eration has divided the whole country into twenty-seven districts, 
whose boundaries coincide partly with state lines, and of which 
each has a district court. Groups of such districts form a circuit, 
of which each has a circuit court, which sits on the more important 
cases, especially civil cases involving large interests. And, finally, 
there is a court of appeals. These districts and circuits are now 
coincident with the regions lying in the jurisdiction of the several 
states. In their method of procedure the federal and the state 
courts resemble each other, especially in the general conduct of 
criminal cases, which is everywhere the same, because the Consti- 
tution itself has fixed the main features. Both state and federal 
courts are alike bound by the extraordinarily rigid rules framed 
by the Constitution in order to protect the innocent man against 
the severity of the law. 

No criminal can be condemned except by a jury which has been 
sworn to perform its duty, and before he comes before this jury a 
provisional jury has to make the accusation against him. Thus 
one sworn jury must be convinced of the justice of the suspicion 
before a second jury can give its verdict. A person cannot be 
brought up for trial twice for the same crime; no one can be com- 
pelled to testify against himself; every one has the right to be 
brought before a jury in the district where the crime was commit- 
ted, to hear all the testimony against him, to have counsel for his 
own defence, and to avail himself of the strong arm of the law in 
bringing to court such witnesses as would speak in his favour; 



JUSTICE log 

cruel or excessive penalties may not be fixed, nor a man's freedom 
or property interfered with except after due process of law. The 
Constitution provides this, and a good deal else, and thus makes 
the conduct of trials uniform. In other respects, however, 
there are not a few differences which are not so obvious in the 
courts. Among these is the circumstance that federal judges 
are appointed for life, while the judges of the separate states are 
elected for short periods of from four to seven years. 

The relations between constitutional laws and legislative laws 
seem even more complicated. Here, too, in a way, the same 
province is covered by a two-fold system of laws. The fixed letter 
of the Constitution and the living decisions by a majority in Con- 
gress or in a state legislature, stand in opposition to each other. 
It is established that no legislature can ride over the Constitution; 
and if the interpretation of a court brings out a contradiction be- 
tween the two systems, a conflict arises which in principle makes 
justice uncertain. If we now ask how it is possible that all such 
conflicts have disappeared without the least prejudice to the na- 
tional sense of justice, how in spite of all these possibilities of 
friction no disturbance is seen, or how in a land which has been 
overrun with serious political conflicts, a jurisprudence so lacking 
in uniformity has always been the north star of the nation — the 
reply will be that the Supreme Court has done all this. The upper 
federal court has been the great reconciling factor in the history 
of the United States, and has left behind it a succession of honour- 
able memorials. Its most distinguished chief justice has been 
John Marshall, who presided over it from 1801 to 1835. He was 
America's greatest jurist, and contributed more than any one else 
toward impressing the spirit of the Constitution on the country. 

The German reader who hears of the Supreme Court sitting at 
the Capitol, must not turn back in his mind to the Imperial Court 
at Leipzig. The Supreme Court is by no means the sole court of 
highest instance, for the suits in single states which properly fall 
within the jurisdiction of a state can go no higher than the high- 
est court of appeal of that state. The Supreme Court in Wash- 
ington is the court of last instance for federal cases; but in order 
to disburden the judges in Washington, there are large classes of 
civil cases pertaining to the federal courts, which can be carried 
no higher than the federal court of appeals of a given circuit. 



no THE AMERICANS 

Much more important than the cases in which the Supreme Court 
is really the court of highest instance for federal suits, are those 
others in which it is at once the court of first and last instance; 
these are the processes which the Constitution assigns immediately 
to the Supreme Court. They are chiefly suits in which a single 
state, or in which the United States is itself a party, for the Su- 
preme Bench alone can settle disagreements between states and 
decide whether the federal or state laws conflict with the Consti- 
tution. In this sense the Supreme Court is higher than both 
President and Congress. If it decides that a treaty which the 
Executive has concluded, or a law which has been passed by the 
Legislative, violates the Constitution, then the doings of both 
Congress and the President are annulled. There is only one way 
by which a decision of the Supreme Court can be set aside — namely, 
by the vote of a three-fourths majority of all the states; that is, by 
an amendment of the Constitution. There are some instances of 
this in the history of the United States; but virtually the decision 
of the nine judges of the Supreme Court is the highest law of the 
land. 

The Supreme Court has annulled Congressional measures 
twenty-one times and state statutes more than two hundred times, 
because these were at variance with the Constitution. Many of 
these have been cases of the greatest political importance, long 
and bitterly fought out in the legislatures, and followed with excite- 
ment by the public. The whole country has often been divided 
in its opinion on a legal question, and even the decision itself of 
the nine judges has sometimes been handed down with only a 
small majority. Nevertheless, for many years the country has 
every time submitted to the oracle of the Supreme Court, and con- 
sidered the whole issue definitely closed. 

One is not to suppose that the Supreme Court occupies itself 
with handing down legal verdicts in the abstract and in a way de- 
claring its veto whenever Congress or some legislature infringes 
the Constitution. Such a thing is out of the question, since theoret- 
ically the Supreme Court, although the equal is not the superior of 
Congress; most of all, it is a court and not a legislature. The 
question of law does not come up then before this tribunal until 
there is a concrete case which has to be decided, and the Supreme 
Court has always declined to hand down a theoretical interpre- 



JUSTICE III 

tation In advance of an actual suit. As early as the eighteenth 
century, Washington was unable to elicit from the Supreme Court 
any reply to a hypothetical question. Even when the actual case 
has come up, the Supreme Court does not say that a certain law 
is invalid, but decides strictly on the one case before it, and an- 
nounces on what principle of the law it has based its decision. If 
there is a disagreement between two laws, the decision of the Court 
simply lays the practical emphasis on one rather than on the other. 
It is true that in this way nothing but one single case is decided; 
but here the principle of common law comes in — one decision 
establishes a point of law, and the Supreme Court and all lower 
courts likewise must in future hand down verdicts conformable 
thereto. The legislative law so superseded is thus practically 
annulled and made non-existent. In the Supreme Court one sees 
again that the security of national justice rests on the binding 
force of former decisions. 

It will be enough to point out two decisions which have been 
given in recent years and which have interested the whole country. 
In the year 1894 Congress passed a new tax law; one clause of 
this law taxed every income which was larger than a certain 
amount. It was taxation of the wealthy. So far as income 
was obtained by actal labour the tax was undoubtedly valid. 
But New York barristers doubted the constitutionality of this tax 
in so far as it was laid on the interest from securities or on rents; 
because the Constitution expressly says that direct taxation for the 
country must be levied by the separate states, and in such a way 
that the whole sum to be raised shall be apportioned among the 
different states according to their population. The counsels of 
the wealthy New Yorkers said this provision ought to apply here. 
The difference would be for every rich man in thickly populated 
states a very considerable one. If the tax was to be apportioned 
according to population, the poor states must also bear their share. 
While it came to be levied on the individuals the largest part of the 
burden would fall to the millionaires, who are grouped in a few 
states. The Supreme Court would say nothing so long as the dis- 
cussion was theoretical. Finally, a case was tested; when the 
lawyers were prepared, a certain citizen refused to pay the income 
tax and let the matter go to court. The first barristers in the 
country were divided on the question, as was also the Supreme 



112 THE AMERICANS 

Court. The majority decided in favour of the citizen who re- 
fused to pay the tax, because in its opinion the tax was a direct 
one, and therefore the constitutional provision relating to direct 
taxation was in force. By this one decision the income tax was 
set aside, and instead of ten thousand new suits being brought, of 
which the outcome was already clear, the excess taxes were every- 
where paid back. At bottom this was the victory, over both 
President and Congress, of a single eminent barrister, who is 
to-day the ambassador to England. 

A still more important decision, because it involved the whole 
political future of the United States, was that on the island pos- 
sessions. By the treaty with Spain, Porto Rico had become a 
possession of the United States, and was therefore subject to United 
States law; but Congress proceeded to lay a tariff on certain wares 
which were imported from the island. There were two possible 
views. On the one hand, the Constitution prescribes that there 
shall be no customs duties of any sort between the states which be- 
long to the Union; and since Porto Rico is a part of the Union the 
rest of the states may not levy a tariff on imports from the island. 
On the other hand, the Constitution empowers Congress to regu- 
late at its discretion the affairs of such territory as belongs to the 
United States, but has not yet been granted the equal rights of 
states; thus the other provision of the Constitution would not im- 
mediately apply to this island. The question had never before 
been decided, because the Indian territories, the Mexican acces- 
sions, and Alaska had never been treated as Porto Rico now was. 
Congress had previously taken for granted that the Constitution 
was in force for these territories, but now the imperialistic ten- 
dencies of politics had created a new situation, and one which had 
to be settled. 

Here too, of course, the Supreme Court did not try to settle the 
theoretical question which was stirring the whole country; but 
presently came the action of Downes vs. Bidwell, a simple suit 
in which a New York commercial house was the complainant, and 
the New York Customs the defendant. In case the provisions 
of the Constitution were to hold for the entire domain of the United 
States, the tariff which Congress had enacted was unconstitu- 
tional, but if the Constitution was to hold only for the states, while 
Congress was sovereign over all other possessions, the tariff was 



JUSTICE 113 

constitutional. The Supreme Court decided for this latter inter- 
pretation by five votes against four, and the commercial house paid 
its tax. Therewith the principle was decided for all time, and if 
to-morrow the United States should get hold of Asia and Africa, 
it is assured from the outset that the new domain would not be 
under the Constitution, but under the authority of Congress — 
simply because Downes lost his case against Customs Inspector 
Bidwell, and had to pay six hundred dollars in duty on oranges. 

This last case shows clearly that the decisions by no means al- 
ways support the Constitution against legislative bodies; and sta- 
tistics show that although in two hundred cases the verdict has 
been against the legislatures, it has been more often decided in 
their favour. The entire history of the Supreme Court shows that 
in a conservative spirit it has always done full justice to both the 
centralizing and particularizing tendencies. It has shown this 
conciliatory attitude especially by the firm authority with which 
it has decided the hazardous disputes over boundaries and other 
diflPerences, between the several states, so that such disputes really 
come up no longer. For a century the Supreme Court has been a 
shining example of a federal tribunal. 

Such complete domination of the national life could not have 
been attained by the Supreme Bench if it had not remained well 
above all the doings of the political parties, and that it does so may 
seem surprising when one considers the conditions under which 
the judges are appointed. The President selects the new judge 
whenever, by death or retirement, a vacancy occurs among the 
nine judges; and the Senate confirms the selection. Party fac- 
tors, therefore, determine the appointment, and in point of fact 
Democratic Presidents have always appointed judges belonging 
to their own party, and Republicans have done the same. The 
result is that both parties are represented in the Supreme Court. 
That in political questions, such as the case of Porto Rico, which 
we have mentioned, party conceptions figure somewhat in the de- 
cision of the judges is undoubted. Yet they figure only in the 
sense that allegiance to one or the other party involves certain 
fundamental convictions, and these necessarily come into play in 
the judicial verdict. On the other hand, there is never the least 
suspicion that the judges harbour political schemes or seek in their 
decision to favour either political party. This results from the 



114 THE AMERICANS 

fact that it is a matter of honour with both parties to place really 
the most distinguished jurists in these highest judicial offices — 
jurists who will be for all time an honour to the administration 
which appointed them. They are almost exclusively men who 
have never taken part in technical politics, but who have been 
either distinguished judges elsewhere or else leading barristers, 
and who, from the day of their appointment on, will be only judges. 
Their position is counted among the most honourable which there 
is, and it would almost never happen that a jurist would decline 
his appointment, although the position, like all American official 
positions, is inadequately rewarded; the salary is ten thousand 
dollars, while any great lawyer is able to earn many times that sum. 
At the present moment there sits on the Supreme Bench a group of 
men, every one of whom represents the highest kind of American 
spirit. The bustle and confusion, which prevail in the two wings 
of the Capitol, does not invade the hall where the nine judges hold 
their sessions. These men are, in the American public mind, the 
very symbol of conscience. 

We shall have occasion to consider later on the administration 
of justice by the nation, under various points of view. While in 
many respects this will appear less conscientious and more es- 
pecially less deliberate, it will, nevertheless, recall not a few 
admirable features of the Supreme Court. 



CHAPTER SIX 

City and State 

THE Constitution, the President and his Cabinet, the Senate, 
the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court, in 
short all of those institutions which we have so far sketched, 
belong to the United States together. The European who pic- 
tures to himself the life of an American will inevitably come to 
think that these are the factors which most influence the life of the 
political individual. But such is not the case; the American 
citizen in daily life is first of all a member of his special state. 
The organization of the Union is more prominent on the surface 
than that of the single state, but this latter is more often felt by 
the inhabitants. 

The quality of an American state can be more easily communi- 
cated to a German than to an Englishman, Frenchman, or Russian. 
The resident of Bavaria or Saxony knows already how a man may 
have a two-fold patriotism, allegiance to the state and also to the 
empire; so that he can recognize the duties as well as the privi- 
leges which are grouped around two centres. The essentials of 
the American state, however, are not described by the comparison 
with a state in the German Empire, which is relatively of too 
little importance; for in comparison with the Union the American 
state has more independence and sovereignty than the German. 
We have observed before that it has its own laws and its own court 
of last appeal; but these are only two of the many indications of 
its practical and theoretical independence. The significant or- 
ganic importance of the state shows itself not less clearly if one 
thinks of the cities subordinate to it, rather than of the Federation 
which is superior to it. While the German state is more depend- 
ent on the Federation than is the American, the German city is 
more independent of the state than is any city in the United 



ii6 THE AMERICANS 

States. The political existence of the American city is entirely 
dependent on the legislature of its state. The Federation on 
the one hand and the cities on the other, alike depend for their 
administrative existence on the separate states. 

It is not merely an historical relic of that time when the thirteen 
states united, but hesitated to give up their individual rights to the 
Federation; a time when there were only six cities of more than 
eight thousand inhabitants. Nothing has changed in this respect, 
and it is not only the Democratic party to-day which jealously 
guards state rights; the state all too often tyrannizes still over the 
large cities within its borders. There are some indications, indeed, 
that the state rights are getting even more emphasis than formerly 
— perhaps as a reaction against the fact that, in spite of all con- 
stitutional precautions, those states which have close commercial 
relations tend practically to merge more and more with one an- 
other. 

On observing the extraordinary tenacity with which the fed- 
eral laws and the local patriotism of the individual cling to the in- 
dependence of each one of the forty-five states, one is inclined to 
suppose that it is a question of extremely profound differences in 
the customs, ideals, temperaments, and interests of the different 
states. But such is not at all the case. The states are, of course, 
very unlike, especially in size; Texas and Rhode Island, for 
instance, would compare about as Prussia and Reuss. There are 
even greater differences in the density of population; and the 
general cast of physiognomy varies in different regions of the 
country. The Southerner shows the character bred by plantation 
life; the citizen of the North-east evinces the culture bred of 
higher intellectual interests; while the citizens of the West 
attest the differences between their agricultural and mining dis- 
tricts. Yet the divisions here are not states, but larger regions 
comprising groups of states, and it sometimes happens that more 
striking contrasts are found within a certain state than would be 
found between neighbouring states. The state lines were after all 
often laid down on paper with a ruler, while nature has seldom 
made sharp lines of demarcation, and the different racial elements 
of the population are fairly well mixed. For the last century the 
pioneers of the nation have carried it steadily westward, so that in 
many states the number of those born in the state is much less than 



Cirr AND STATE 117 

of those who have migrated to it; and of course the obstinate as- 
sertion of the prerogatives of such a state does not arise from any 
cherished local traditions to which the inhabitants are accustomed. 
The special complexion of any provincial district, moreover, is as- 
sailed from all sides and to a large extent obliterated, in these days 
of the telegraph and of extraordinarily rapid commercial inter- 
course and industrial organization. 

The uniformity of fashions, the wide-spread distribution of 
newspapers and magazines, the great political parties, and the in- 
tense national patriotism all work towards the one end — that 
from Maine to California the American is very much the same sort 
of man, and feels himself, in contrast with a foreigner, to be merely 
an American. And yet in spite of all this each single state holds 
obstinately to its separate rights. It is the same principle which 
we have seen at work in the American individual. The more the 
individuals or the states resemble one another the more they seem 
determined to preserve their autonomy; the more similar the sub- 
stance, the sharper must be the distinctions in form. 

The inner similarity of the different states is shown by the fact 
that, while each one has its own statute-book and an upper court 
which jealously guards its special constitution, nevertheless all 
of the forty-five state constitutions are framed very much alike. 
The Constitution of the United States would by no means require 
this, since it prescribes merely that every state constitution shall be 
republican in form; and yet not a single state has taken advantage 
of its great freedom. The constitutions of the older states were 
modelled partly on the institutions of the English fatherland, 
partly on those of colonial days; and when many of these features 
were finally embodied in the Federal Constitution, they were re- 
flected back once more in the constitutions of the states which later 
came to be. The new states have simply borrowed the general 
structure of the older states and of the Federation, without much 
statesmanlike imagination; although here and there is some adapt- 
ation to special circumstances. There are indeed some odd dif- 
ferences at superficial points, and inasmuch as, in contrast to the 
Federal Constitution, the state constitutions have frequently been 
reshaped by the people, a reactionary tendency or some radical 
and hasty innovation has here and there been incorporated. 

The principles, however, are everywhere the same. Each state 



ii8 THE AMERICANS 

has framed a reduced copy of the Federal Constitution, and one 
finds a still more diminutive representation of the same thing in 
the American city charter. Yet we must not forget here that, 
although theoretically and constitutionally the state is greater 
than the city, yet in fact the city of New York has a population 
eighty times as large as the State of Nevada, with its bare 40,000 
inhabitants; or, again, that the budget of the State of Massachu- 
setts is hardly a quarter as large as that of Boston, its capital city. 

Thus, like the Union, both city and state have a charter and an 
executive, a dual legislature, and a judiciary, all of which repro- 
duce on a small scale all the special features of the federal organ- 
ization. The city charter is different from that of the state, in 
that it is not drawn up by the inhabitants of the city, but, as we 
have said, has to be granted by the state legislature. The head 
of the state executive, the governor, is in a way a small president, 
who is elected directly by the people, generally for a two years' 
term of office. In the city government the mayor corresponds to 
him, and is likewise elected by the citizens ; and in the larger 
cities for the same period. A staff of executive officers is provided 
for both the mayor and the governor. 

Under the city government are ranged the heads of departments, 
who are generally chosen by the mayor himself; New York, for 
instance, has eighteen such divisions — the departments of finance, 
taxation, law, police, health, fire, buildings, streets, water-supply, 
bridges, education, charities, penal institutions, park-ways, pub- 
lic buildings, etc. The most important officials under the state 
government are always the state secretary, the state attorney- 
general, and the treasurer. Close to the governor stands the 
lieutenant-governor, who, after the pattern of the federal gov- 
ernment, is president of the upper legislative chamber. The gov- 
ernor is empowered to convene the legislature, to approve or to 
veto all state measures, to pardon criminals, to appoint many of 
the lower officials, although generally his appointment must be 
confirmed by the upper legislative body, and he is invariably in 
sole command of the state militia. The legislature of the state 
is always, and that of the cities generally, divided into two 
chambers. Here again the membership in the upper cham- 
ber is smaller than that of the lower and more difficult to obtain. 
Often the state legislature does not meet in the largest city, but 



CITY AND STATE iig 

makes for itself a sort of political oasis, a diminutive Washington. 
The term of office in the legislature is almost always two years, 
and everywhere the same committee system is followed as at the 
Capitol in Washington. Only a member of the legislative body 
can propose bills, and such propositions are referred at once to a 
special committee, where they are discussed and perhaps buried. 
They can come to the house only through the hands of this com- 
mittee. The freedom given to the state legislature is somewhat 
less than that given by the Constitution to Congress. While all 
the parliamentary methods are strikingly and often very naively 
copied after those in use at Washington, the state constitutions were 
careful from the outset that certain matters should not be subject 
to legislative egotism. On the other hand the state legislature 
hands down many of its rights to inferior bodies, such as district, 
county, and city administrations; but in all these cases in which 
there is a real transfer of powers, it is characteristic that these really 
pertain to the state as such, and can, therefore, be withdrawn by 
the state legislatures from the smaller districts at any time. 

The entire administration of the state falls to the state 
legislature; that is, the measures for public instruction, taxation, 
public works, and the public debt, penal institutions, the super- 
vision of railroads, corporations, factories, and commerce. In 
addition to this there are the civil and criminal statutes, with the 
exception of those few cases which the Constitution reserves for 
federal legislation; and, finally, there is the granting of franchises 
and monopolies to public and industrial corporations. Of course, 
within this authority there is nothing which concerns the relation 
of one state to other states or to foreign powers, nor anything of 
customs revenues or other such matters as are enacted uniformly 
for all parts of the country by the federal government. The 
state has, however, the right to fix the conditions under which 
an immigrant may become a naturalized citizen; and a foreigner 
becomes an American citizen by being naturalized under the law 
of any one of the forty-five states. All this gives an exceedingly 
large field of action to state legislatures, and it is astonishing 
how little dissimilar are the provisions which the different states 
have enacted. 

The city governments are very diverse in size, but in all the 
larger cities consist of two houses. The German reader must not 



120 THE AMERICANS 

suppose that these work together like the German magistrate and 
the municipal representative assembly. Since in America the 
legislative and executive are always sharply sundered, the heads of 
departments under the executive — that is, the German Stadtrate 
— have no place in the law-making body. The dual legislative 
is, therefore, in a way an upper and lower municipal representative 
assembly, elected in different ways and havmg similar differences 
in function as the two chambers of Congress. Here too, for 
instance, bills of appropriation have to originate in the lower 
house. Oddly enough, the city legislative is generally not entrusted 
with education, but this is administered by a separate municipal 
board, elected directly by the people. One who becomes ac- 
quainted with the intellectual composition of the average city 
father, will find this separation of educational matters not at all 
surprising, and very beneficent and reasonable. 

In general, one may say that the mayor is more influential in 
the city government than that body which represents the citizens; 
this in contrast to the situation in the state government, where the 
governor is relatively less influential than the legislature. The 
chief function of the governor is really a negative one, that of 
affixing his veto from time to time on an utterly impossible law. 
The mayor, on the other hand, can shape things and leave the 
stamp of his personality on his city. In the state, as in the city, it 
often happens that the head of the executive and a majority of the 
legislative belong to opposite parties, and this not because the 
party issues are forgotten in the local elections, but because the 
methods of election are different. 

The division of public affairs into city and state issues leaves, of 
course, room for still a third group, namely, the affairs of com- 
munities which are still smaller than cities. These, too, derive 
their authority entirely from the state legislature, but all states 
leave considerable independence to the smaller political units. In 
local village government the historic differences of the various re- 
gions show out more clearly than in either state or city government. 
The large cities are to all intents and purposes cast in the same 
mould everywhere; their like needs have developed like forms of 
life; and the coming together of great numbers of people have 
everywhere created the same economic situation. But the scat- 
tered population gets its social and economic articulation in the 



Cirr AND STATE 121 

North, South, and West, in quite different ways; and this differ- 
ence, at an early time when the problems of a large city were so 
far not known, led to different types of village organizations, which 
have been historically preserved. 

When the English colonies were growing up, the differences 
in this connection between the New England states and Virginia 
were extreme. The colonies on the northern shores, with their 
bays and harbours, their hilly country and large forests, could not 
spread their population, out over large tracts of land, and were 
concentrated within limited regions; and this tendency was fur- 
ther emphasized by Puritan traditions, which required the popu- 
lation to take active part in church services. There naturally was 
developed a local form of government for small districts, which 
corresponded to old English traditions. The citizens gathered 
from all parts of every district to discuss their common affairs and 
to decide what taxes should be raised, what streets built, and, most 
of all, what should be done for their churches and schools, and for 
the poor. In Virginia, on the other hand, where very large 
plantations were laid out, there could be no such small com- 
munities; the population was more scattered, and affairs of general 
interest had necessarily to be entrusted to special representatives, 
who were in part elected by small parishes and in part appointed 
by the governor. The political unit here was not the town, but the 
county. 

The difference in these two types is the more worthy of consider- 
ation because it explains how the North and South have been able 
to contribute such different and yet such equally valuable factors 
to all the great events of American history. New England and 
Virginia were the two centres of influence in Revolutionary times 
and when the Union was being completed, but their influences 
were wholly different. New England served the country by 
effecting an extraordinarily thorough education of its masses, by 
giving them a long schooling in local self-government; each in- 
dividual was obliged to meditate on public affairs. Virginia, 
however, gave to the country its brilliant leaders; the masses re- 
mained backward, but the county representatives practised and 
trained themselves to the role of leading statesmen. Between 
these two extremes lay the Middle Atlantic States, where a mixed 
form of town and county representation had necessarily developed 



122 THE AMERICANS 

from the social conditions; and these three types, the Northern, 
Southern, and mixed, worked slowly back during the nineteenth 
century from the coast toward the West. Settlers in the new states 
carried with them their familiar forms of local government, so 
that to-day these three forms may still be found through the coun- 
try. To-day the chief functions of town governments are public 
instruction, care for the poor, and the building of roads. Re- 
ligious life is, of course, here as in the city, state, and Union, wholly 
separated from the political organization. The police systems 
of these local governments in town and village are wholly rudi- 
mentary. While the police system is perhaps the most difficult 
chapter in American city government, the country districts have 
always done very well with almost none. This reflects the moral 
vigour of the American rural population. The people sleep every- 
where with their front doors open, and everywhere presuppose the 
willing assistance of their neighbours. It was not until great 
populations commenced to gather in cities, that those social evils 
arose, of which the police system, which was created to obviate 
them, is itself not the least. 

Any one overlooking this interplay of public forces sees that in 
town and city, state and Union, it is not a question of forcing ad- 
ministrative energies into a prescribed sphere of action. They 
expand everywhere as they will, both from the smaller to the larger 
sphere and from the larger to the smaller. Therefore, the Union 
naturally desires to take on itself those functions of state legisla- 
tion in which a lack of uniformity would be dangerous; as, for 
instance, the divorce laws, the discrepancies in which between 
diff^erent states are so great that the necessity of more uniform 
divorce regulations is ever becoming more keenly felt. At pres- 
ent it is a fact that a man who is divorced under the laws of 
Dakota and marries again can be punished in New York for 
bigamy. A similar situation exists in regard to certain trade 
regulations, where there are unfortunate discrepancies. Many 
opponents of the trusts want even an amendment to the Consti- 
tution which will bring them under federal law, and prevent these 
huge industrial concerns from incorporating under the too lax 
laws of certain states. 

Still easier is it for the states to interfere in the city govern- 
ments. If the Union wishes to make new regulations for the state. 



CITY AND STATE 123 

the Federal Constitution has to be amended; while if the state 
wants to hold a tighter rein on city government it can do so di- 
rectly, for, as we have seen, the cities derive all their powers from 
the state legislature. There is, indeed, considerable tendency 
now to restrict the privileges of cities, and much of this is sound, 
especially where the state authority is against open municipal 
corruption. The general tendency is increasing to give the state 
considerable rights of supervision over matters of local hygiene, 
industrial conditions, penal and benevolent institutions. The ad- 
vantages of uniformity which accrue from state supervision are 
emphasized by many persons, and still more the advantage de- 
rived from handing over hygienic, technical, and pedagogical ques- 
tions to the well-paid state experts, instead of leaving them to the 
inexperience of small districts and towns. There is no doubt that 
on these lines the functions of the state are being extended slowly 
but steadily. 

Then again the cities and towns in their turn are tending to 
absorb once more such forces as are subordinate to them, and thus 
to increase the municipal functions. The fundamental principles 
which have dominated the economic life in the United States and 
brought it to a healthful development, leave the greatest possible 
play for private initiative; thus not very long ago it was a matter 
of course that the water supply, the street lighting, the steam and 
electric railways should be wholly in the hands of private com- 
panies. A change is coming into these affairs, for it is clearly seen 
that industries of this sort are essentially different from ordinary 
business undertakings, not only because they make use of public 
roads, but also because such plants necessarily gain monopolies 
which find it easy to levy tribute upon the public. In recent 
years, therefore, city governments have little by little taken over 
the water supplies, and tend somewhat to limit the sphere of other 
private undertakings of this sort — as, for instance, that of street- 
lighting. At the same time there is an unmistakable tendency 
for city and town to undertake certain tasks which are not eco- 
nomically necessary, and which have been left hitherto to private 
initiative. Cities are building bath-houses and laundries, play- 
grounds and gymnasiums, and more especially public libraries 
and museums, providing concerts and other kinds of amusements 
and bureaus for the registration of those needing employment; in 



12^ THE AMERICANS 

short, are everywhere taking up newly arisen duties and perform- 
ing them at public expense. 

There is, on the other hand, a strong counter-current to these 
tendencies of the large units to perform the duties of the small — 
the strong those of the weak, the city those of the individual, the 
state those of the city, and the Union those of the state. The op- 
position begins already in the smallest circle of all, where one sees 
a strong anti-centralizing tendency. The county or city is not 
entitled, it is said, to expend the taxpayers' money for luxuries or 
for purposes other than those of general utility. It should be gen- 
erous philanthropists or private organizations that build museums 
and libraries, bath-houses and gymnasiums, but not the city, 
which gets its money from the pockets of the working classes. Al- 
though optimists have proposed it, there will certainly be for a 
long time yet no subsidized municipal theatres; and it is notice- 
able that the liberal offers of Carnegie to erect public libraries are 
being more and more declined by various town councils, because 
Carnegie's plan of foundation calls for a considerable augmenta- 
tion from the public funds. And wherever it is a question of in- 
dispensable services, such as tramways and street-lighting, the 
majority generally says that it is cheaper every time to pay a small 
profit to a private company than to undertake a large business at 
the public expense. From the American point of view private 
companies are often too economical, while public enterprises are 
invariably shamelessly wasteful. 

The city pays too dear and borrows at too high a rate; in short, 
regulates its transactions without that wholesome pressure exert- 
ed by stockholders who are looking for dividends. Worst of all, 
the undertakings which are carried on by municipalities are often 
simply handed over to political corruption. Instead of trained 
experts, political wire-pullers of the party in office are employed 
in all the best-paid positions, and even where no money is con- 
sciously wasted, a gradual laxness creeps in little by little, which 
makes the service worse than it would ever be in a private com- 
pany, which stands all the time in fear of competition. For this 
reason the American is absolutely against entrusting railroads and 
telegraph lines to the hands of the state. When a large telegraph 
company did not adequately serve the needs of the public, another 
concern spread its network of wires through the whole country; 



CITY AND STATE 125 

and since then the Western Union and Postal Telegraph have been 
in competition, and the public has been admirably served. But 
what relief would there have been if the state had had a monopoly 
of the telegraph lines, with politicians in charge who would have 
been indifferent to public demands ? The wish to be economical, to 
keep business out of politics, and to keep competition open, all work 
together, so that the extension of municipal functions, although 
ardently wished on many sides, goes on very slowly; and it is 
justly pointed out that whenever private corporations in any way 
abuse their privileges the community at large has certainly plenty 
of means for supervising them, and of giving them franchises un- 
der such conditions as shall amply protect public interests. When 
a private company wishes to use public streets for its car-tracks, 
gas or water pipes, or electric wires, the community can easily 
enough grant the permission for a limited length of time, reserv- 
ing perhaps the right to purchase or requiring a substantial pay- 
ment for the franchise and a portion of the profits, and can leave 
the rest to public watchfulness and to the regular publication of 
the company's reports. It is not to be doubted that the tendencies 
in this direction are to-day very marked. 

Just as private initiative is trying not to be swallowed up by the 
community, so the community is trying to save itself from the state. 
So far as the village, town, or county is concerned, nobody de- 
nies that state experts could afford a better public service than the 
inexperienced local boards, and, nevertheless, it is felt that every 
place knows best after all just what is adapted to its own needs. 
The closest adaptation to local desires, as, say, in questions of 
public schools and roads, has been always a fundamental Ameri- 
can principle. This principle started originally from the peculiar 
conditions which existed in the several colonies and from the 
needs of the pioneers; but it has led to such a steady progress in 
the country's development that no American would care to give it 
up, even if here and there certain advantages could be had by in- 
troducing greater uniformities. There is a still more urgent 
motive; it is only this opportunity of regulating the affairs of the 
small district which gives to every community, even every neigh- 
bourhood, the necessary schooling for the public duties of the 
American citizen. If he is deprived of the right to take care of his 
own district, that spirit of self-determination and independence 



J26 THE AMERICANS 

cannot develop, on which the success of the American experiment 
in democracy entirely depends. Political pedagogy requires that 
the state shall respect the individuality of the small community so 
far as this is in any way possible. 

The relation between the city and the state is somewhat differ- 
ent; no one would ask the parliamentarians of the state legislature 
to hold off in order that the population of the large city may have 
the opportunity to keep their political interests alive and to pre- 
serve their spirit of self-determination. This spirit is at home in 
the streets of the great city; it is not only wide-awake there, but it 
is clamorous and almost too urgent. When, now, the munic- 
ipalities in their struggle against the dictation of the state, meet 
v/ith the sympathies of intelligent people, this is owing to the sim- 
ple fact that the city, in which all cultured interests are gathered 
generally, has in all matters a higher point of view than the repre- 
sentatives of the entire state, in which the more primitive rural 
population predominates. When, for instance, the provincial 
members which the State of New York has elected meet in Albany, 
and with their rural majority make regulations for governing the 
three million citizens of New York City, regulations which are per- 
haps paternally well meant, but which sometimes show a petty 
distrust and disapproval of that great and wicked place, the re- 
sult is often grotesque. The state laws, however, favour this sort 
of dictation. 

The state constitutions still show in this respect the condition of 
things at a time in which the city as such had hardly come into 
recognition. The nineteenth century began in America with six 
cities of over eight thousand inhabitants, and ended with 545. 
Moreover, in 1800 those six places contained less than four per 
cent, of the population, while in 1900 the 545 cities contained more 
than thirty-three per cent, thereof. Since only a twenty-fifth part 
of the nation lived in cities, the greater power of the scattered pro- 
vincial population seemed natural; but when now a third of the 
nation prefers city life, and especially the more intelligent, more 
educated, and wealthy third, the limitations to independent 
municipal rights become an obstacle to culture. 

Finally, the states themselves are opposing on good grounds 
every assumption of rights by the Federation — the same good 
grounds, indeed, which the community has for opposing the state. 



CITY AND STATE 127 

and many others besides. It Is felt that historically it has been the 
initiative of individuals rather than of the central government 
w^hich has helped the nation to make its tremendous strides for- 
ward, and that this initiative should not only be rewarded with 
privileges, but should also be stimulated by duties. The more 
nearly one state is like another, so much the more energetically 
does it forbid the others to interfere in its affairs; and the more it 
is like the Union the more earnestly it seeks not to let its distinct 
individuality be swallowed up. Besides the moral effort toward 
state individuality, there is a powerful state egotism at work in 
many states which makes for the same end. Back of everything, 
finally, there is the fear of the purely political dangers which are 
involved in an exaggerated centralization. We have seen in this 
a fundamental sentiment of the Democratic party. 

Thus at every step in the political organization centrifugal and 
centripetal forces stand opposite each other in the Federal Union, 
in the state, in the county, and in the city. And public opinion is 
busy discussing the arguments on both sides. Every day sees 
movements in one or the other direction, and there is never any 
let up. In all these discussions it is a question of conflicting prin- 
ciples, which in themselves seem just. There is, however, an- 
other contrast — that between principle and lack of principle. In 
the Union, the state, and the city, centralists and anti-centralists 
meet on questions of law; but in each one of these places there are 
groups of people working against the law and trying in every way 
to get around it. In these discussions there is a true and false, but 
in the conflicts there is a right and wrong; and here argumentation 
is not needed, but sheer resistance. If one does not purposely 
close one's eyes, one cannot doubt that the public life of America 
holds certain abuses, which are against the spirit of the Constitu- 
tion and which too often come near to being criminal. One can 
ask, to be sure, if that lack of conscience does not have place 
in every form of state in one way or another, and if the necessity 
of developing a sound public spirit to fight against abuse may itself 
not be an important factor in helping on the spirit of self-deter- 
mination to victory. 

Any one who should write the history of disorganizing forces in 
American public life will have the least to say about federal poli- 
tics, a good deal more about those of the state, and most of all 



128 THE AMERICANS 

about those of the city. Certain types of temptation are repeated 
at every stage. There is, for instance, the legislative committee, 
which is found aUke in Congress, in the state legislatures, and in 
the city councils. Bills are virtually decided at first by two or 
three persons who exert their influence behind the closed doors 
of the committee room; and naturally enough corrupt influences 
can much more easily make their way there than in the discussions 
of the whole house. If a municipal committee has a bill under 
discussion, the acceptance of which means hundreds of thousands 
of dollars saved or lost to the street railway company, then certain- 
ly, although the president and directors of the company will not 
themselves take any unlawful action, yet in some way some less 
scrupulous agent will step in who will single out a bar-keeper 
or hungry advocate or fourth-class politician in the committee, 
who might be amenable to certain gilded arguments. And if 
this agent finds no such person he will find some one else who does 
not care for money, but who would like very well to see his 
brother-in-law given a good position in the railway company, or 
perhaps to see the track extended past his own house. 

Of course the same thing happens when a measure is brought 
before the state legislature, and the vote of some obscure provin- 
cial attorney on the committee means millions of dollars to the 
banking firm, the trust, the mining company, or the industrial 
community as a whole. Here the lobby gets in its work. The 
different states are, of course, very diff"erent in this respect; the 
cruder forms of bribery would not avail in Massachusetts and 
would be very dangerous; but they feel differently about such 
things in Montana. As we have already said. Congress is free of 
such taints. 

Another source of temptation, which likewise exists for all 
American law-giving bodies, arises from the fact that all measures 
must be proposed by the members of such body. Thus local 
needs are taken care of by the activity of the popular representa- 
tives, and, therefore, the number of bills proposed becomes 
very large. Just as during the last session of Congress, 17,000 
measures were proposed in the lower house, hundreds of thou- 
sands of bills are brought before the state legislatures and city 
councils. There is never a lack of reasons for bringing up super- 
fluous bills. And since the system of secret committees makes it 



Cirr AND STATE izg 

difficult for the individual representative to appear before the 
whole house and to make a speech, it follows that the introduction 
of a few bills is almost the only way in which the politician can 
show his constituency that he was not elected to the legislature in 
vain, and that he is actually representing the interests of his sup- 
porters. A milder form of this abuse consists of handing in bills 
which are framed by reason of personal friendships or hatreds; 
and the same thing appears in uglier form when it is not a question 
of personal favour, but of services bought and paid for, not of 
personal hatred, but of a systematic conspiracy to extort money 
from those who need legislation. The milder form of wrong- 
doing, in which it is only a question of personal favours, can be 
found everywhere, even in the Capitol at Washington, and the 
much-boasted Senatorial courtesy lends a sort of sanction to the 
abuse. 

This evil is strengthened, as it perhaps originated, by the tacit 
recognition of the principle that every legislator represents, first of 
all, his local district. It is not expected of a senator that he shall 
look at every question from the point of view of the general wel- 
fare, but rather that he shall take first of all the point of view of his 
state. It has indeed been urged that the senator is nothing but 
an ambassador sent to represent his state before the federal gov- 
ernment. If this is so, it follows at once that no state delegate 
ought to have any control over the interests of another state, and 
so the wishes of any senator should be final in all matters pertain- 
ing to his own state. From this it is only a small step to the exist- 
ing order of things, in which every senator is seconded on his own 
proposals by his colleagues, if he will second them on theirs. In 
this way each delegate has the chance to place the law-giving 
machinery at the service of those who will in any way advance his 
political popularity among his constituents, and help him during 
his next candidacy. And then, too, a good deal is done merely for 
appearances; bills are entered, printed, and circulated in the local 
papers to tickle the spirits of constituents, while the proposer 
himself has not supposed for a moment that his proposition will 
pass the committee. Things go in the state legislatures in quite 
the same way. Each member is first of all the representative of 
his own district, and he claims a certain right of not being inter- 
fered with in matters which concern that district. In this way he 



ISO THE AMERICANS 

is accorded great freedom to grant all sorts of legislative favours 
which will bring him sufficient returns, or to carry through legal 
intrigues to the injury of his political opponents. And here in the 
state legislature, as in the city council, where the same principles 
are in use, there is the best possible chance of selling one's friendly 
services at their market value. If a railroad company sees a bill 
for public safety proposed which is technically senseless and ex- 
aggerated, which will impede traffic in the state, and involve ruin- 
ous expenditures, it will naturally be tempted not to sit idle in the 
hope that a majority of the committee will set the bill aside; for 
that course would be hazardous. It may be that all sorts of prej- 
udices will work together toward reporting the bill favourably. 
If the company wants to be secure, it will rather try such argu- 
ments as only capitalists have at their command. And it has here 
two ways open: either to "convince" the committee or else to 
make arrangements with the man who proposed the bill, so that 
he shall recall it. If the possibility of such doings once exists in 
politics, there is no means of preventing dishonourable persons 
from making money in such ways; not only do they yield to temp- 
tation after they have been elected, but also they seek their elec- 
tions solely in order to exploit just such opportunities. 

Here we meet that factor which distinguishes the state legis- 
lature, particularly of those states whose traditions are less firmly 
grounded, and still more the city councils, so completely from the 
federal chambers in Washington. The chance to misuse office 
is alike in all three places, but men who have entered the politi- 
cal arena with honourable motives very seldom yield to criminal 
temptation. The usual abuses are committed almost wholly by 
men who have sought their political office solely for the sake of 
criminal opportunities; and this class of pseudo-politicians can 
bring itself into the city council very easily, in the state legislature 
without much difficulty, but almost never into Congress. If it were 
attractive or distinguished or interesting to be in the state legisla- 
ture, or on the board of aldermen, there would be a plenty of 
worthy applicants for the position, and all doubtful persons would 
find the door closed; but the actual case is quite different. 

To be a member of Congress, to sit in the House of Represen- 
tatives or perhaps in the Senate, is something which the very best 
men may well desire. The position is conspicuous and pictu- 



CITY AND STATE 131 

resque, and against the background of high political life the in- 
dividual feels himself entrusted with an important role. And al- 
though many may hesitate to transfer their homes to the federal 
capital, nevertheless the country has never had difficulty in find- 
ing sufficient Representatives who are imbued with the spirit of the 
Constitution. On the other hand, to serve as popular represen- 
tative in the state legislature means for the better sort of man, un- 
less he is a professional politician, a considerable sacrifice. The 
legislature generally meets in a remote part of the state, at every 
session requires many months of busy work on some committee, 
and most of this work is nothing but disputing and compromising 
over the thousand petty bills, in which no really broad political 
considerations enter. It is a dreary, dispiriting work, which can 
attract only three kinds of men : firstly, those who are looking for- 
ward to a political career in the service of the party machine and 
undergo a term in the state legislature only as preparation for 
some more important office; secondly, those who are glad of the 
small and meagre salary of a representative; and finally, those 
whose modest ambition is satisfied if they are delegated by their 
fellow-citizens in any sort of representative capacity. Therefore 
the general level of personality in the state legislature is low. 
Men who have important positions will seldom consent to go, and 
when influential persons do enter state politics it is actually with 
a certain spirit of renunciation, and not so much to take part in 
the business of the legislature as to reform the legislature itself. 
Since this is the case, it is not surprising that the most unwhole- 
some elements flock thither, extortioners and corrupt persons who 
count on it, that in regard to dishonourable transactions, the other 
side will have the same interest in preserving silence as themselves. 
We must also not forget that the American principle of strictly 
local representation works in another way to keep down the level 
of the smaller legislative bodies. If the Representative of a cer- 
tain locality must have his residence there, the number of possible 
candidates is very much restricted. This is even more true of the 
city government, where the principle of local representation re- 
quires that every part of the city, even the poorest and most 
squalid, shall elect none but men who reside in it. To be sure, 
there is a good deal in this that is right; but it necessarily brings 
a sort of people together in public committee with whom it is not 



JS2 THE AMERICANS 

exactly a pleasure for most men to work. The questions which 
have to be talked over here are still more trivial, and more than 
that, the motives which attract corrupt persons are somewhat 
more tangible here; since in the rapid growth of the great city the 
awarding of monopolies and contracts creates a sort of spoilsman's 
paradise. As the better elements hold aloof from this city gov- 
ernment, by so much more do corrupt persons have freer play. 

The relation of the city to both the state and Federation is 
even more unfavourable when one comes to consider not the legis- 
lative, but the executive, department. Whereas in Washington, 
for example, a single man stands at the head of every department 
in the administration, and is entirely responsible for the running 
of things, there has frequently been in the city administrations, 
up to a short time ago, a committee which is so responsible — 
this in agreement with the old American idea that a majority can 
decide best. Where, however, a single man was entrusted with 
administrative powers, he was selected generally by the mayor 
and the city council together, and they seldom called a real expert 
to such a position. In any case, since the administration de- 
pends wholly on party politics, and the upper staff changes with 
each new party victory, there is no such chance for a life career 
here as would tempt competent men to offer their services. 

In this part of the government, moreover, there is more danger 
from the administration by committees than anywhere else. The 
responsibility of a majority cannot be fixed anywhere; and where 
the mayor and aldermen work together in the selection of 
officials, neither of the two parties is quite responsible for the 
outcome — which is naturally not to be compared with the closely 
guarded election of officials under German conditions. For in 
Germany the selection of the head of a city department will lie 
between a few similarly trained specialists, while the adminis- 
tration of a New York or a Chicago department, as, say, that of 
the police or of street-cleaning, is thought to presuppose no 
special preparation, and therefore the number of possible can- 
didates is unlimited. It is not surprising that such irresponsible 
committees are not above corruption, and that many a man who 
has received a well-paid administrative position in return for his 
services to the party, proceeds to make his hay while the sun 
shines. It is true that there are many departments where no such 



Cirr AND STATE 133 

temptation comes in question. It is, for example, universally be- 
lieved that the fire departments of all American cities are ad- 
mirably managed. The situation is most doubtful in the case of 
the police departments, w^hich, of course, are subject to the great- 
est temptations; and here, too, there can be the v^orst abuses in 
some vv^ays along with the highest efficiency in others. The ser- 
vice for public protection in a large city may be admirably organ- 
ized and crime strenuously follov^ed up, and nevertheless the 
police force may be full of corruption. Thieves and murderers 
are punctiliously suppressed, w^hile at the same time the police are 
extorting a handsome income from bar-rooms which evade the 
Sunday laws, from public-houses which exist in violation of city 
statutes, and from unlawful places of amusement. 

To be sure, we must again and again emphasize two things. In 
the first place, it is probable that nine-tenths of the charges are ex- 
aggerated and slanderous. The punishments are so consider- 
able, the means of investigation so active, and the public watch- 
fulness so keen, both on account of the party hostility and by vir- 
tue of a sensational press, that it would be hardly comprehensible 
psychologically, if political crime in the lowest strata of city or 
state were to be really anything but the exception. The many al- 
most fanatically conducted investigations produce from their 
mountains of transactions only the smallest mice, and the state 
attorney is seldom able to make out a case of actual bribery. In 
this matter the Anglo-Americans are pleased to point out that 
wherever investigations have ended in making out a case which 
could really be punished, the person has been generally an Irish- 
man or some other European immigrant. In any case, the col- 
lection of immigrants from Europe in the large cities contributes 
importantly to the unhappy condition of city politics. 

In the second place, we must urge once more that the mere dis- 
tribution of well-paid municipal positions to party politicians is 
not necessarily in itself an abuse. When, for instance, in a large 
city, a Republican is succeeded by a Democratic mayor, he can 
generally bestow a dozen well-paid and a hundred or two more 
modest commissions to men who have helped in the party victory. 
But he will be careful not to pick out those who are wholly un- 
worthy, since that would not only compromise himself, but would 
damage his party and prevent its being again victorious. If he 



IS4 "THE AMERICANS 

succeeds, on the other hand, in finding men who will serve the 
city industriously, intelligently, and ably in proportion to their pay, 
it is ridiculous to call the promise of such offices by way of party 
reward in any sense a plundering of the city, or to make it seem 
that the giving of positions to colleagues of one's party is another 
sort of corruption. 

The evils of public life and the possibility of criminal practices 
are not confined to legislative and executive bodies. The ju- 
diciary also has its darker side. One must believe fanatically in 
the people in order not to see what judicial monstrosities occasion- 
ally come out of the emphasis which is given to the jury system. 
The law requires that the twelve men chosen from the people to 
the jury must come to a unanimous decision; they are shut in a 
room together and discuss and discuss until all twelve finally de- 
cide for guilty or not guilty. If they are not unanimous, no ver- 
dict is given, and the whole trial has to begin over again. A single 
obstinate juryman, who clings to his particular ideas, is able, 
therefore, to outweigh the decision of the other eleven. And it is 
to be remembered that every criminal case is tried before a jury. 
The case is still worse if all twelve agree, but agree only in their 
prejudices. Especially in the South, but also in the West some- 
times, juries return decisions which simply insult the intelligence 
of the country. It is true that the unfairness is generally in the 
direction of declaring the defendant not guilty. 

The law's delay is also exceedingly regrettable, as well as the 
extreme emphasis on technicalities, in consequence of which no 
one dares, even in the interests of justice, to ignore the slightest 
inaccuracy of form — a fact whose good side too, of course, no one 
should overlook. It is most of all regrettable that the choice of 
judges depends to so large an extent on politics, and that so many 
judicial appointments are made by popular elections and for a 
limited term. The trouble here is not so much that a faithful party 
member is often rewarded with a judicial position, since for the 
matter of that there are equally good barristers to be chosen from 
either party for vacant positions on the bench; the real evil is that 
during his term of office the judge cannot help having an eye to his 
reelection or promotion to some higher position. This brings 
politics into his labours truly, and it too often happens that a 
ready compliance with party dictates springs up in the lower ju- 



Cirr AND STATE 135 

dicial positions. Only the federal and the superior state courts 
are entirely free from this. 

In a similar way, politics sometimes play a part in the doings 
of the state attorney. He is subordinate to the state or federal 
executive, that is, to a party element which has contracted obli- 
gations of various sorts, and it may so happen that the state 
attorney will avoid interfering here and there in matters where a 
justice higher than party demands interference. Especially in 
the quarrels between capital and labour, one hears repeatedly that 
the state attorney is too lenient toward large capitalists. Then 
there are other evils in judicial matters arising from the unequal 
scientific preparation of jurists; the failing here is in the judicial 
logic and pregnancy of the decision. 

Finally, one source which is a veritable fountain of sin against 
the commonwealth is the power of the party machine. We have 
traced out minutely how the public life of the United States de- 
mands two parties, how each of these may hope for victory only if 
it is compactly organized, and how such organizations need an 
army of more or less professional politicians. They may be in the 
legislature or out of it; it is their position in the party machine 
which gives them their tremendous powers — powers which do not 
derive from constitutional principles nor from law, but which are 
in a way intangible, and therefore the more liable to abuse. 

Richard Croker has never been mayor of New York, and yet he 
was for a long time dictator of that city, no matter what Democratic 
mayor was in office, and remained dictator even from his country 
place in England. He ruled the municipal Democratic party 
machine, and therefore all the mayors and officials were merely 
pawns in his hands. Millions of dollars floated his way from a 
thousand invisible sources, all of which were somehow connected 
with municipal transactions; and his conscience was as elastic as 
his pocket-book. That is what his enemies say, while his friends 
allege him to be a man of honour; and nothing has really been 
proved against him. But at least one thing is incontestable, that 
the system of the party machine and the party boss makes such 
undemonstrable corruption possible. Almost every state legisla- 
ture is in the clutches of such party mandarins, and even men who 
are above the suspicion of venality misuse the tempting power 
which is centred in their hands in the service of their personal 



136 THE AMERICANS 

advantage and reputation, of their sympathies and antipathies, 
and transform their Democratic leadership into autocracy and 
terrorism. In the higher sense, however, every victory which they 
win for their party is like the victory of Pyrrhus, for their selfish 
absolutism injures the party more than any advantage which it 
wins at the polls benefits it. Their omnipotence is, moreover, 
only apparent, for in reality there is a power in the land which 
is stronger than they, and stronger than Presidents or legislatures, 
and which takes care that all the dangers and evils, sins and 
abuses that spring up are finally thrown off without really hinder- 
ing the steady course of progress. This power is public opinion. 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

Public Opinion 

WE have spoken of the President and Congress, of the or- 
ganization of court and state, and, above all, of the par- 
ties, in order to show the various forms in which the 
genius of the American nation has expressed itself. It may seem 
almost superfluous to recognize public opinion as a separate 
factor in political aff^airs. It is admitted that public opinion is 
potent in aesthetic, literary, moral, and social problems, with all 
of which parties and constitutions have nothing to do. But it 
might be supposed that when a people has surrounded itself with 
a network of electoral machinery, supports hundreds of thou- 
sands of representatives and officials, has perfected parties with 
their armies of politicians and legislatures which every year dis- 
cuss and pass on thousands of laws • — it might be supposed that 
in regard to political questions public opinion would have found 
its complete expression along official channels, and in a sense 
would have exhausted itself. Yet this is not the case. The en- 
tire political routine, with its paraphernalia, forms a closed system, 
which is distinct in many ways from the actual public opinion of 
the country. 

It is indeed no easy matter to find under what conditions the 
will of a people can most directly express itself in the official ma- 
chinery of politics. Many Germans, for instance, entertain the 
notion that no government is truly democratic except the cabinet 
be in all matters dependent on a majority in parliament; and 
they are astonished to learn that in democratic America Congress 
has no influence on the election of the highest officials; that the 
President, in fact, may surround himself with a cabinet quite an- 
tagonistic to the political complexion of Congress. But no Ameri- 
can believes that politics would represent public opinion any bet- 



138 THE AMERICANS 

ter if this independence of the Executive and his cabinet were to be 
modified, say in conformity with the English or French idea. The 
reasons for a discrepancy between public opinion and official poli- 
tics lie anyhow not in the special forms prescribed by the Consti- 
tution, but in the means by which the forms prescribed by the Con- 
stitution are practically filled by the nation. In the English Con- 
stitution, for instance, there is nothing about a cabinet; and yet 
the cabinet is the actual centre of English politics. American 
politics might keep to the letter of the Constitution, and still be the 
truest reflection of public opinion. That they are not such a re- 
flection is due to the strong position of the parties. The rivalry 
of these encourages keen competition, in which the success of the 
party has now become an end in itself quite aside from the prin- 
ciples involved. Personal advantages to be derived from the 
party have become prominent in the minds of its supporters; and 
even where the motives are unselfish, the tactics of the party are 
more important than its ideals. But tactics are impossible with- 
out discipline, and a party which hopes to be victorious in defend- 
ing its own interests or in opposing others' will be no mere debating 
club, but a relentlessly strict and practical organization. Where- 
with the control must fall to a very few party leaders, who owe 
their positions to professional politicians — that is, to men who for 
the most part stand considerably below the level of the best Ameri- 
cans. 

The immense number of votes cast in the Presidential elections 
is apt to hide the facts. Millions vote for one candidate and mil- 
lions for the other, without knowing perhaps that a few months be- 
fore the national convention some ten or twelve party leaders, sit- 
ting at a quiet little luncheon, may have had the power to fix on 
the presidential candidate. And these wise foreordainings are 
even less conspicuous in the case of governors, senators, or repre- 
sentatives. Everywhere the masses believe that they alone de- 
cide, and so they do between the nominees of one party and of the 
other, or sometimes between several candidates within the party; 
but they are not aware that a more important choice is made be- 
hind the scenes before these candidates make their appearance. 

As with the incumbents, so it is with the platform. The party 
leaders practically decide what questions shall be made the polit- 
ical issues; and this is the most important function of all. We 



PUBLIC OPINION 139 

have seen that dissenting groups can hardly hope on ordinary oc- 
casions to make a break in the firm party organization, and 
though they may vigorously discuss questions which have not been 
approved by the party leaders, they vs^ill, nevertheless, arrive at no 
practical results. It therefore happens very often that voters are 
called on to decide issues v^hich seem to them indifferent, or to 
choose between two evils, and can expect nothing from either can- 
didate in the matters which they think most vital. They go to the 
polls merely out of consideration for their party. Thus, in reality, 
the people do not decide the issues on which they are to vote, nor on 
the candidates whom they elect, nor yet on the party leaders who do 
decide these things. Nor can the people, if discontented with the 
party in power, recall that party during its term of office. In Ger- 
many the government can dissolve parliament if new issues arise; 
in England the Cabinet resigns if it fails to carry a measure; but 
in America the party with a congressional majority has nothing to 
fear during its appointed term. In short, the political life of 
America is dominated by those forces which rule the parties, and 
only in so far as the nation is filled with the party spirit, is the 
official political hierarchy an expression of the nation's will. 

Now it is not in the nature of public opinion to nerve itself up to 
clear and definite issues. Unless worked on by party dema- 
gogues, it never formulates itself in a mere yes or no, but surveys 
the situation impartially, seeing advantages and disadvantages 
on both sides, and passes a conservative judgment. The man who 
thinks only of parties will often agree to a compromise which is 
unjust to both parties and in general unworthy of them; but the 
man who takes his stand above the parties knows that many prob- 
lems are not fathomed with a yea or nay; he does not see two op- 
posite sides between which an artificial compromise is to be found, 
but he appreciates the given situation in its organic unity and 
historical perspective. Historical understanding of the past and 
moral seriousness for the future guarantee his right judgment. 
He sees the practical opposition of interests, which is always more 
complex than the two-horned dilemma that the parties advertise, 
in a true light, and testimony of experts instead of politicians 
suggests to him the rational solution of the problem. The actual 
course of action to be followed may coincide with the plan of one 
or the other party, or may be a compromise between them, and yet 



14.0 THE AMERICANS 

it will be a distinct policy. In such decisions there lives ever the 
spirit of immediate reality; no artificial dichotomy nor any polit- 
ical tactics are involved, and the natural moral feeling of a 
healthy nation is then sufficient for every issue. Nowhere is this 
naive moral sense more potent among the masses than in America; 
will then these unpartisan convictions have no weight in political 
life ? Will they not rather strive to have an independent effect 
on the destinies of the nation .? The centre and real expression 
of these politics for essentials is the system of public opinion. 

We have seen that every American legislature has two parts, an 
upper and a lower house, which have different ways of procedure 
and different prerogatives. One might similarly say that the 
parties with all their paraphernalia are merely the lower house of 
the nation, while Public Opinion is the upper house; and only 
the two houses together constitute the entire national political 
life. The nation is represented in each branch, but in different 
senses. In a way the parties express quantitatively the will of the 
nation, and public opinion does it qualitatively. Whenever a 
quantitative expression is wanted, the issues must be sharply con- 
trasted in order to separate clearly the adherents of each; all fine 
shades and distinctions have to be sacrificed to an artificial clear- 
ness of definition, much as is done in mechanics, when any motion 
is schematically represented, as the diagonal in a parallelogram of 
two other forces. As a quantity any yea or nay is as good as any 
other, and the intensity of any party movement is due to the ac- 
cumulation of small increments. The great advantage of this 
lower house is, as of every lower house, that its deliberations can 
be brought to an end and its debates concluded. Every political 
election is such a provisional result. 

It is very different in the upper house. Public opinion accepts 
no abstract schematizations, but considers the reality in all its 
complication, and in its debates no weight is given to any show of 
hands or other demonstration of mere numbers. Crass contrasts 
do not exist here, but only subtle shadings; men are not grouped 
as friends and foe, but they are seen to differ merely in their 
breadth of outlook, their knowledge, their energy, and in their 
singleness of heart. The end in view is not to rush politics, but 
to reform politics and in all matters to shape public events to 
national ideals. Here one vote is not like another, but a single 



PUBLIC OPINION J41 

word wisely and conscientiously spoken is heard above the babel 
of thousands. And here the best men of the nation have to show 
themselves, not with programmes nor harangues, but with a quiet 
force which shapes and unites public opinion and eventually car- 
ries all parties before it. 

Public opinion may be responsible now for a presidential veto 
on a bill of Congress, now for the sudden eclipse of a party leader, 
or the dropping of a list of candidates, or again it may divide a 
party in the legislature. Public opinion forces the parties, in 
spite of themselves, to make mere party advantage secondary to a 
maturer statesmanship. 

Germans will not readily appreciate this double expression of 
the popular will; they would find it more natural if party life and 
public opinion were one. For in Germany the conditions are 
quite different. In the first place there are a dozen parties, which 
express the finer shades of public opinion more adequately than 
the two parties can in America. And this division into many 
small parties prevents the development of any real party organ- 
ization such as would be needed by a party assuming entire re- 
sponsibility for the affairs of the nation. The nearest approach 
to two great parties is the opposition between all the " biirgerliche'* 
parties on the one hand and the social democrats on the other. 
But the development of really responsible parties is hardly to be 
expected, since the German party is allowed only a small degree 
of initiative. The representatives of the people have the right to 
accept or reject or to suggest improvements in the proposals of the 
government; but with the government rest the initiative and the 
responsibility. The government stands above the parties, and 
is not elected by the people nor immediately dependent on them. 
It originates most of the legislative and executive movements, and 
therewith represents exactly that moral unity of the nation which 
is above all parties, and which is represented in America by public 
opinion; while in America the government is the creature of the 
parties. 

One should not draw the conclusion that the public opinion of 
America is the quintessence of pure goodness. Public opinion in 
the United States would be no true indication of the forces at 
work in the nation if it did not represent all the essentials of the 
typical American. In order to find this typical man, it would be 



142 THE AMERICANS 

misleading simply to take the average of the millions; one leaves 
out of account the great herd of colourless characters, and selects 
the man who harmoniously combines in himself, v^ithout ex- 
aggeration, the most striking peculiarities of his countrymen. He 
is not easy to find, since eccentricity is frequent; one man is gro- 
tesquely patriotic, another moral to intolerance, another insipidly 
complacent, and another too optimistic to be earnest or too ac- 
quisitive to be just. 

And yet if one goes about much in American society, one finds 
oneself now and then, not only in New York or Boston or Wash- 
ington, but quite as well in some small city of the West, in a little 
circle of congenial men who are talking eagerly, perhaps over their 
cigars after dinner; and one has the feeling that the typical Ameri- 
can is there. His conversation is not learned nor his rhetoric 
high-flown; but one has the feeling that he is alive and worth 
listening to, that he sees things in sharp perspective, is sincerely 
moral, and has something of his own to say. Party politics do 
not interest him specially, although as citizen he goes to a few 
meetings, contributes to the party funds, and votes on election day 
if the weather permits. But he speaks of politics generally with a 
half-smile, and laughs outright at the thought of himself running for 
the legislature. He sees the evil about him, but is confident that 
everything will come around all right; the nation is young, strong, 
and possessed of boundless resources for the future. Of course 
he understands the prejudices of the masses, and knows that mere 
slap and dash will not take the place of real application in solving 
the problems which confront the nation; he knows, too, that 
technical proficiency, wealth, and luxury alone do not constitute 
true culture. And herewith his best energies are enlisted; he con- 
tributes generously to libraries and universities, and very likely 
devotes much of his time to the city schools. But he is frank to 
confess, as well, that he has a weakness for good-fellowship and 
superficiality, preferring operetta to tragedy every time. He is 
not niggardly in anything; to be so is too unaesthetic. At first 
one is astonished by his insouciance and the optimism with which 
he makes the best of everything. One feels at once his good 
nature and readiness to help, and finds him almost preternaturally 
ready to be just to his opponents and overlook small failings. He 
envelops everything with his irrespressible sense of humour, and 



PUBLIC OPINION 143 

is always reminded of a good story, which he recounts so drolly 
and felicitously that one is ready to believe that he never could be 
angry. But this all changes the instant the talk turns from amus- 
ing stupidities or little weaknesses and goes over to indecency or 
corruption or any baseness of character. Then the typical Ameri- 
can is quite changed; his genuine nobility of soul comes out and 
he gives his unvarnished opinion, not blusteringly, but with self- 
controlled indignation. One feels that here is the real secret of 
his character; and one is surprised to see how little he cares for 
political parties or social classes. He will fiercely condemn the 
delinquencies of his own party or the unfair dealings of his own 
social set. It now appears how honestly religious he is, and how 
far the inner meaning of his life lies beyond the merely material. 

Such a good fellow it is, with all his greater and lesser traits, 
who may at any time voice undiluted public opinion. Thousands 
who are better, wiser, more learned, or less the spendthrift and 
high-liver, and the millions of inferior natures, will show one trait 
or another of the national character in higher relief. And yet the 
type is well marked; it is always optimistic and confident in the 
future of America, indifferent to party tactics, but enthusiastically 
patriotic. It is anxious to be not merely prosperous but just and 
enlightened as well; it is almost hilariously full of life, and yet 
benevolent and friendly; conservative although sensitive, with- 
out respect for conventions and yet religious, sanguine but 
thoughtful, scrupulously just to an opponent but unrelenting to- 
ward any mean intent. Probably the most characteristic traits 
of public opinion are a patient oversight of mistakes and weak- 
nesses, but relentless contempt and indignation for meanness and 
lack of honour. This is in both respects the very reverse of the 
party spirit, which is too apt to hinge its most boasted reforms on 
trivial evils, and pass over the greatest sins in silence. 

One element of public opinion should be suggested in even the 
briefest sketch — its never - failing humour. It is the antiseptic 
of American politics, although it would be better, to be sure, if 
political doings could be aseptic from the outset. But probably 
dirty ambition and selfishness are harder to keep down in a de- 
mocracy than anywhere else. The humour of public opinion 
stands in striking contrast, moreover, to party life; as one cannot 
fail to discover on looking closely. Party tactics demand that the 



144 ^^^ AMERICANS 

masses have hammered into them the notion that the sacred 
honour of the nation Hes with their party, but that on the other 
side there Hes hopeless ruin. The man who urges this dogma must 
keep a very solemn face, for if he were to bring it out with a 
twinkle in his eye, he would destroy the force of his sugges- 
tion. The voter, too, is serious in his duties as a citizen, 
and demands of the candidates this extremely practical mien 
and solemn party arrogance. But when the same citizen 
talks the matter over with his friends, he is no longer a 
stickler for party, but a voicer of public opinion, and he sees 
at once the humour of the situation. He punctures the party 
bubbles with well-aimed ridicule. So it happens that the popu- 
lation is more ruled by humour here than anywhere else, while the 
party leaders stand up, at least before the public, in the most sol- 
emn guise. Just as in some American states the men drink wine 
at home, but at official banquets call for mineral water; so out 
of the political harness one may commit excesses of humour, but 
in it one must be strictly temperate. This is, of course, the re- 
verse of the well-known English method, where the masses are 
rather dull, while the leaders are famous wits and cynics. Amer- 
ica would never allow this. When one meets leading politicians or 
members of the Cabinet in a social way, one is often amazed at 
their ready wit, and feels that these men have decidedly the capac- 
ity to shine as do their English colleagues. But that would wreck 
the party service. The people are sovereign; public opinion has, 
therefore, the right to ironical humour, and can smilingly look down 
on the parties from a superior height; while those who play the 
party game of government have still to keep demure and sober. 
In England it is the Cabinet, in America public opinion, which 
assumes the gentle role of wit. Hardly could the contrast be- 
tween aristocracy and democracy be more clearly exemplified. 

If some one should ask who makes public opinion, he might 
well be referred at first to that class which at present does not en- 
joy the suffrage, and presumably will not for some time to come — 
the women. The American woman cares little enough for party 
politics, and this is not so much because she has no rights. If she 
had the interest she probably would have the rights. But while 
the best people have no wish to see the women mix in with the 
routine of party machinery, this is not at all in order that they 



PUBLIC OPINION I4S 

may not concern themselves with the public problems of the day. 
On the contrary, women exert a marked influence on public opin- 
ion; and here, as might be expected, it is not the organized 
crusades, like the temperance movement, which count, but rather 
their less noisy demonstrations, their influence in the home and 
their general rightness of feeling. Every reform movement which 
appeals to moral motives is advanced by the public influence of 
women, and many a bad piece of jobbery is defeated by their in- 
strumentality. 

If the boundaries between the sexes are forgotten in the matter 
of public opinion, so even more are those between the various 
classes. Public opinion is not weakened by any class antipathies. 
To be sure, every profession and occupation has its peculiar in- 
terests, and in different quarters the public opinion takes on some- 
what different hues; the agricultural states have other problems 
than the industrial; the South others than the North; and the min- 
ing districts still others of their own. But these are really not differ- 
ences of public opinion, but different sectors of the one great circle. 
In spite of the diverse elements and the prejudices which go to 
make up public opinion, it is everywhere remarkably self-con- 
sistent. This is because it is the voice of insight, conscience, and 
brotherly feeling, as against that of carelessness, self-interest, and 
exclusiveness. The particular interests of capital and labour, of 
university and primary school, of city and country, have not their 
special representatives at the court of public opinion. And least 
in evidence of all, of course, are the officials and professional poli- 
ticians. These men are busy in strictly party affairs, and have no 
time to dabble in the clear stream of public opinion. At best, a 
few distinguished senators or governors, together with the Presi- 
dent and an occasional member of the Cabinet, come to have an 
immediate influence on public opinion. 

The springs of public opinion flow from the educated and sub- 
stantial members of the commonwealth, and are often tinged at 
first with a very personal colouring; but the streamlets gather and 
flow far from their sources and every vestige of the personal is lost. 
Ideas go from man to man, and those which are typically Ameri- 
can find as ready lodgment with the banker, the manufacturer, or 
the scholar as with the artisan or the farm-hand. Any man who 
appeals to the conscience, morality, patriotism, or brotherly feel- 



14-6 THE AMERICANS 

ing of the American, or to his love of progress and order, appeals 
to no special parties or classes, but to the one public opinion, the 
community of high-minded citizens to the extent of their disinter- 
estedness. 

Yet even such a public opinion requires some organization and 
support. Bold as the statement may sound, the American news- 
paper is the main ally of public opinion, serving that opinion more 
loyally than it serves either official politics or the party spirit. The 
literary significance of the newspaper we shall consider in another 
connection, but here only its public influence. An American 
philosophizing on the newspapers takes it as a matter of course 
that they serve the ends of party politics; and it is true enough 
that party life as it is would not be possible without the highly dis- 
seminated influence of the newspaper. A German coming to the 
country is apt to deny it even this useful function. He is acquaint- 
ed in Europe with those newspapers which commence on the first 
page with serious leading articles, and relegate the items of the 
day to a back page along with the advertisements. But here he finds 
newspapers which have on the first pages not a word of editorial 
comment and hardly even a serious piece of politics — nothing, in 
fact, but an unspeakable muddle of undigested news items; and as 
his eye rests involuntarily on the front page, with its screaming 
headlines in huge type, he will find nothing but crimes, sensational 
casualties, and other horrors. He will not before have realized 
that the devouring hunger of the American populace for the daily 
news, has brought into existence sheets of large circulation adapted 
to the vulgar instincts of the millions, the giant headlines of which 
warn off the educated reader from as far as he can see them; that 
paper is not for him. But a foreigner does not realize the in- 
justice of estimating the political influence of the press from a 
glance at these monstrosities, which could not thrive abroad, not 
so much because the masses are better and more enlightened as 
because they care less about reading. Moreover, he will come 
slowly to realize that what he missed from the front page is some- 
where in the middle of the paper; that the street-selling makes it 
necessary to make the most of sensations on the outside, and to 
put the better things where they are better protected. And so 
he learns that the American newspaper does express opinions, 
although its looks belie it. 



PUBLIC OPINION 147 

The better sort of American newspaper is neither a party pub- 
lication nor yet merely a news-sheet, but the conscious exponent of 
public opinion. Its columns contain a tiresome amount of party 
information, it is true; but a part of this is directly in the interests 
of an intelligent public opinion, since every citizen needs to be 
instructed in all the phases of party life, of political and congres- 
sional doings, and in regard to the candidates who are up for office. 
It is to be admitted, moreover, that some of the better newspapers, 
although not the very best, are unreservedly committed to the 
leaders of some party — in short, are party organs. In the same 
way several newspapers are under the domination of certain in- 
dustrial interests and cater to the wishes of a group of capitalists. 
But any such policy has to be managed with the utmost discretion, 
for the American newspaper reader is far too experienced to 
buy a sheet day after day which he sees to be falsified; and 
he has enough others to resort to, since the competition is always 
keen, and even middle-sized cities have three or four large daily 
papers,. 

It is perhaps fortunate that any such extreme one-sidedness is 
not to the commercial advantage of the newspapers, for in America 
they are preeminently business enterprises. Their financial suc- 
cess depends in the first place on advertisements, and only sec- 
ondarily on their sales in the streets. The advertising firm does 
not care whether the editorials and news items are Republican or 
Democratic, but it cares very much about the number of copies 
which are circulated; and this depends on the meritorious features 
which the paper has over competing sheets. Newspapers like 
the German, which count on only a small circle of readers, and 
these assured, at least for the time being, by subscriptions, can far 
more readily treat their readers cavalierly and constrain their at- 
tention for a while to a certain party point of view. In an Ameri- 
can city the daily sales are much greater than the subscriptions, 
and the sheets which get the most trade are those which habitually 
treat matters from all sides, and voice opinions which fall in with 
every point of view. Of course, this circumstance cannot prevent 
every paper from having its special political friends and foes, its 
special hobbies, its own style, and, above all, its peculiar material 
interests. But, on the whole, the American newspaper is extra- 
ordinarily non-partisan on public questions, notwithstanding the 



14-8 THE AMERICANS 

statements in many German books to the contrary; and the or- 
dinary reader might peruse a given paper for weeks, except just 
on the eve of an election, w^ithout really knowing whether it was 
Republican or Democratic. Now one party and now the other is 
brought up for criticism, and even when the sheet is distinctly in 
favour of a certain side, it will print extracts from the leading ar- 
ticles of opposing journals, and so well depict the entire situation 
that the reader can form an opinion for himself. 

While the newspapers are in this way largely emancipated from 
the yoke of parties, they are the exponents of a general set of ten- 
dencies which, in opposition to party politics, we have called public 
opinion. In other words, the papers stand above the parties with 
their crudely schematic programmes and issues, and aspire to 
measure men and things according to their true worth. Though 
ostensibly of one party, a journal will treat men of its own side to 
biting sarcasm, and magnanimously extol certain of its opponents. 
The better political instincts, progress and reform, are appealed to; 
and if doubtful innovations are often brought in and praised as re- 
forms, this is not because the newspaper is the organ of a party, but 
rather of public sentiment, as it really is or is supposed to be. The 
newspaper reflects in its own way all the peculiarities of public 
opinion — its light-heartedness and its often nervous restlessness, 
its conservative and prudent traits, its optimism, and its ethical 
earnestness; above all, its humour and drastic ridicule. It is well 
known that the American newspaper has brought the art of polit- 
ical caricature to perfection. The satirical cartoon of the daily 
paper is of course much more effective than that of the regular 
comic papers. And these pictures, although directed at a political 
opponent, are generally conceived in a broader spirit than that of 
any party. The cap and bells are everywhere in evidence, and 
there is nothing dry or pedantic. From the dexterous and in- 
cisive leading article to the briefest jottings, one notes the same 
good humour and playful satire which are so characteristic of pub- 
lic opinion. This general humorous turn makes it possible to 
give an individual flavour to the most ordinary pieces of daily 
news, so that they have a bearing considerably broader than the 
bare facts of the case, and may conceivably add their mite to pub- 
lic opinion. And herewith a special newspaper style has come in, 
a combination of a photographically accurate report and the 



PUBLIC OPINION I4P 

whimsical feuilleton. Thus it happens that the best papers edi- 
torially persuade where they cannot dictate to their readers, and 
so, apart from party politics, nourish public opinion and create 
sentiment for or against persons, and legislative and other meas- 
ures, while ostensibly they are merely giving the news of the last 
twelve hours. 

There is another distinctly American invention — the interview. 
Doubtless it was first designed to whet the reader's curiosity with 
the piquant suggestion of something personal or even indiscreet. 
In Europe, where this form of reporting is decidedly rudimentary, 
it usually evinces neither tact nor taste; whereas in America it is 
really a literary form, and so familiar now as to excite no remark. 
It has come to be peculiarly the vehicle of public opinion, as op- 
posed to party politics. The person interviewed is supposed to 
give his personal opinions, and it is his authority as a human per- 
sonality which attracts the reader. A similar function is served 
by the carefully selected letters to the editor, which take up a con- 
siderable space in the most serious sheets. 

The outer form of the newspaper is a matter really of the techni- 
cal ability of the American, rather than of his political tastes; and it 
is to be observed at once that the general appearance, and above all, 
the whole system of getting and printing news rapidly, is astonish- 
ing. Every one has heard of the intrepid and fertile reporters, and 
how on important occasions they leave no stone unturned to ob- 
tain the latest intelligence for their papers. But the persistence 
of these men is less worthy of note than the regular system by 
which the daily news is gathered and transmitted to every paper 
in the land. With an infallible scent, a pack of reporters follows 
in the trail of the least event which may have significance for the 
general public. A good deal of gossip and scandal is intermingled, 
to be sure, and much that is trivial served up to the readers; but 
granted for once, that millions in the lower classes, as members of 
the American democracy, wish, and ought to wish, to carry home 
every night a newspaper as big as a book, then, of course, such a 
hunger for fresh printed matter can be satisfied only by mental 
pabulum adapted to the vulgar mind. The New York Evening 
Post will have nothing of this sort; it appeals more to bank direct- 
ors and professors; but shop-hands prefer the World. It is the 
same as with the theatres; if the ordinary citizen is prosperous 



150 THE AMERICANS 

enough to indulge frequently in an evening at the theatre, then, of 
course, melodrama and farce will become the regular thing, since 
the common man must always either laugh or cry. 

The lightning news service is, of course, somewhat superficial 
and frequently in error, not to say that it is served up often with 
the minimum of taste; but the readers gladly take the risk of mis- 
takes for the sake of the greater advantage it is to public opinion 
to have a searchlight which penetrates every highway and byway, 
showing up every sign of change in the social or political situation, 
and every intimation of danger. 

And if reporters are accused of being indiscreet, one must first 
inquire whether the fault does not really lie with some one or other 
who, while pretending to shrink from publicity, really wants to see 
his name in the paper. Any one familiar with the newspapers of 
the country knows that he is perfectly safe in telling any editor, and 
even any reporter, whatever he likes if he adds the caution that he 
does not wish it given out. It will not be printed. The American 
journalist is usually a gentleman, and can be relied on to be 
discreet. The principal journalists and editors of the leading 
newspapers are among the ablest men of the country, and they 
often go over to important political positions and become even 
ministers and ambassadors. 

The powerful influence of the American newspapers is outward- 
ly displayed in the sumptuous buildings which they occupy. 
While in Europe the newspapers are published generally in very 
modest quarters, where the editors have to sit in dingy rooms, the 
buildings of the American newspapers compare favourably with 
the best commercial edifices; and the whole business is conducted 
on an elaborate scale. Scarcely less astonishing are their achieve- 
ments in the way of illustration. While the most select papers de- 
cline on principle to appeal to the taste for sensation, many large 
papers have yielded to the demand, and have brought the technique 
of illustration nearly to perfection. A few hours after any event 
they will have printed a hundred thousand copies of the paper 
with pictures taken on the spot, and reproduced in a manner of 
which any European weekly might well be proud. 

Taken all in all, the American press very worthily represents 
the energy, prosperity, and greatness of the American nation; and 
at the same time with its superficial haste, its vulgarity and ex- 



PUBLIC OPINION 151 

citability, with its lively patriotism and irrepressible humour, it 
clearly evinces the influence of democracy. The better the paper 
the more prominent are the critical and reflective features; w^hile 
the wider the circulation, the more noticeable are the obtrusive 
self-satisfaction and provincialism, and the characteristic disdain 
of things European. Going from the East to the West, one finds a 
fairly steady downward gradation in excellence, although some 
samples of New York journalism can vie for crude sensationalism 
with the most disgusting papers of the Wild West. And yet the 
best papers reach a standard which in many respects is higher 
than that of the best journals of the Old World. A paper like the 
Boston Transcript will hardly find its counterpart in the German 
newspaper world; and much good can be said of the Suuy Trib- 
une, Times, and Post in New York, the Star in Washington, 
the Public Ledger in Philadelphia, the Sun in Baltimore, the 
Eagle in Brooklyn, the Tribune in Chicago, the Herald in Boston, 
the Evening Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and many others which 
might be named. Even small cities like Springfield, Massachu- 
setts, produce such large and admirable papers as the Springfield 
Republican. And to be just, one must admit that the bad papers 
could be condensed into tolerably good ones by a liberal use of the 
blue pencil. For their mistakes lie not so much in their not hav- 
ing good contributions as in their inclusion of crude and sensational 
material by way of spice. Very often the front page of a paper 
will be overrun with the most ofi^ensive scandals, caricatures, and 
criminal sensations, while the ninth and tenth pages will oflPer 
editorials and other articles of decided merit. The newspapers 
which care only for a large circulation will have something for 
everybody; and they are not far out of the way in calculating that 
the educated reader who looks first at the editorials and political 
dispatches, will have enough that is unregenerate in his soul to 
make him relish a sideward glance at the latest sensational re- 
ports. The newspaper is content on the whole not to bore its 
readers, and to hold a close rein on public opinion rather than on 
party politics. 

With all this, it is not to be denied that there are lower motives 
which degrade journalism. One qf the chief temptations lies in 
the amalgamation of newspaper politics and party activities. The 
editor who, in the interests of public opinion, scans all the parties 



152 THE AMERICANS 

with a critical eye and professes to be impartial, is for this very rea- 
son the more tempted to misuse his position for private gain. He 
may diligently support one party in the name of impartiality and 
fairness, w^hile in reality he counts on a remunerative office if that 
party is successful; and from this point the steps are fev^ to the 
moral state of those w^ho attack a certain party or an industrial 
enterprise in order to discover the error of their position on re- 
ceipt of a sufficient compensation. The energy with which some 
newspapers stand up for certain financial interests casts grave 
doubt on their personal independence; and yet direct bribery plays 
an exceedingly small role, and the government or a foreign country 
is never the corrupting influence. Very much more important are 
the vanity and selfishness of newspaper proprietors, who for one 
reason or another choose to lead the public astray. But such per- 
versities are less dangerous than one might think, for the American 
newspaper reader reads too much and is politically too discerning 
to take these newspapers at their face value. The mood induced 
by one paper is corrected by another; and while the journalist is 
tickled at his own shrewdness in writing only what his readers will 
like, the reader slyly preserves his self-respect and belief in his own 
critical ability, by hunting out everything with which he does not 
agree and reading that carefully. If the journal is above the 
party, the reader is above the journal, and thus it is that the news- 
papers are the most influential support of public opinion. 

In this, however, they do not enjoy a monopoly; beside them 
are the weekly and monthly papers. Here again we shall con- 
sider their literary merits in another connection, but their greatest 
significance lies in their influence on public opinion. The political 
eff^orts of the weekly papers are mostly indirect; they deal pri- 
marily with practical interests, religious and social problems, and 
literary matters; but the serious discussions are carried on as it 
were against a political background which lends its peculiar hue 
to the whole action. The monthly magazines are somewhat more 
ambitious, and consider politics more directly. In their pages, 
not merely professional politicians, but the very ablest men of the 
nation, are accustomed to treat of the needs and duties of city and 
state; and these discussions are almost never from a one-sided 
point of view. A magazine like the North American Review 
usually asks representatives of both parties to present their opin- 



PUBLIC OPINION 153 

ions on the same question; and a similar breadth of view is adopt- 
ed by the Atlantic Monthly, the Review of Reviews , and other 
leading monthlies, whose great circulation and influence are hardly 
to be compared with similar magazines of Europe. The point of 
view common to all is that of a very critical public opinion, well 
above party politics and devoted to national reform and every- 
thing which makes for progress and enlightenment. Much the 
same can be said of those magazines which combine politics 
with literature and illustrations, such as the Century, Harper s, 
Scribnersy McClure's, and many others. When McClure's Maga- 
zine, for example, presents to its half-million readers month after 
month an illustrated history of the Standard Oil Trust, every page 
of which is an attack on secret evasions of the law, it is not serving 
the interests of any party, but is reading public opinion a lesson. 

The spoken word vies with the printed. The capacity of 
Americans, and especially of the women, to listen to lectures is 
well-nigh abnormal. And in this way social and political propa- 
gandas find a ready hearing, although a purely party speech 
would not be effective outside of a party convention. The wit 
and pathos of the speaker generally reach a level considerably 
above mere matters of expediency, and appeal to public opinion 
from a broadly historical point of view. The dinner speaker is 
also a power, since he is not constrained, as in Germany, to sand- 
wich his eloquence in between the fish and game or to make every 
speech wind craftily around and debouch with the inevitable 
" dreimal Hoch." He is quite at liberty to follow either his whims 
or his convictions, and herein has come to be a recognized spring 
of public opinion. 

Finally, somewhat the same influence is exerted by the countless 
clubs and associations, and the various local and national societies 
which are organized for specific ends. Every American of the 
better sort belongs to any number of such bodies, and although 
concerning two-thirds of them he knows no more than that he pays 
his dues, there is left a third for which he sincerely labours. There 
is much in these organizations which is one-sided, egotistical, and 
trivial, and yet in the most of them there is something which is 
sound and right. There is not one at least which fails to strength- 
en the conviction that every citizen is called to be the bearer of 
public opinion. Just as the parties complain that the voters neg- 



J54 THE AMERICANS 

lect the routine duties of the organization, so to be sure do the 
strenuous reformers of the country complain that the ranks be- 
hind them informally break step. But the main thing is that 
behind them there is a host, and that public opinion is to-day as 
thoroughly organized as the official parties, and that it sees each 
day more clearly that its qualitative effect on the national life is 
at least equally important with the quantitative efficacy of the 
parties. 

Every important question is treated by both organizations, pub- 
lic opinion, and the parties. At the approach of a great election 
the parties create such a stir and bustle that for a couple of months 
the voice of public opinion seems hushed. Party tactics rule the 
day. But on the other hand, public opinion has its own festivals, 
and above all, works on tirelessly and uninterruptedly, except for 
the short pause just before elections. Public opinion reacts 
equally on both parties, forces them to pass laws that the poli- 
ticians do not relish, and to repeal others that the politicians would 
gladly keep; and, ignoring these men, it brings the public con- 
science to bear on the issues to be pressed, the candidates to be 
nominated, and the leaders to be chosen. 



CHAPTER EIGHT 

Problems of Population 

WE have surveyed public opinion and party politics as two 
distinct factors in the American national consciousness, 
as tw^o factors which are seldom in complete agreement, 
and which are very often in sharp opposition, but which finally 
have to work together like an upper and lower legislative chamber 
in order to solve the problems of the day. We have not the space 
to speak minutely of all these problems themselves with which the 
American is at the present moment occupied; since the politics of 
the day lie outside of our purpose. This purpose has been to 
study that which is perennial in the American spirit, the mental 
forces which are at work, and the forms in which these work them- 
selves out. But the single questions on which these forces oper- 
ate, questions which are to-day and to-morrow are not, must be 
left to the daily literature. It is our task, however, to indicate 
briefly in what directions the most important of these problems 
lie. Every one of them would require the broadest sort of handling 
if it were to be in the least adequately presented. 

So many problems which in European countries occupy the 
foreground, and which weigh particularly on the German mind, 
are quite foreign to the American. Firstly, the church problem as 
a political one is unknown to him. The separation of church and 
state is so complete, and the results of this separation are viewed 
on all sides with so much satisfaction, that there is nowhere the 
least desire to introduce a change. It is precisely in strictly re- 
ligious circles that the entire independence of the church is regard- 
ed as the prime requisite for the growth of ecclesiastical influence. 
Even the relations between the church and party politics are dis- 
tinctly remote, and the semi-political movements once directed 
against the Catholic Church are already being somewhat forgotten. 



IS6 THE AMERICANS 

There is no Jesuit question, and the single religious order which 
has precipitated a real political storm has been the sect of Mor- 
mons, which ecclesiastically sanctions an institution that the 
monogamous laws of the nation forbid. Even here the trouble has 
been dispelled by the submission of the Mormon Church. 

As a matter of course, America has also never known a real con- 
flict between the executive and the people. The government 
being always elected at short intervals by the people and the head 
of the state with his Cabinet having no part in legislation, while 
his executive doings merely carry out the wishes of the dominant 
political party, of course no conflicts can arise. To be sure, there 
can be here and there small points of friction between the legis- 
lative and executive, and the President can, during his four years 
of office, slowly drift away from the party which elected him, and 
thus bring about some estrangement; but even this would only be 
an estrangement from the professional politicians of his party. 
For experience has shown that the President, and on a smaller 
scale the governor of a state, is successful in breaking with his 
party only when he follows the wishes of public opinion instead of 
listening to the dictates of his party politicians. But in that case 
the people are on his side. One might rather say that the con- 
flicts between government and people, which in Europe are 
practically disputes between the government and the popu- 
lar representatives of political parties, repeat themselves in Amer- 
ica in the sharp contrast between public opinion on the one hand 
and the united legislative and executive on the other; since the 
government is itself of one piece with the popular representa- 
tion. Public opinion, indeed, preserves its ancient sovereignty as 
against the whole system of elections and majorities. 

There is another vexation spared to the American people; it 
has no Alsace-Lorraine, no Danish or Polish districts; that is, 
it has no elements of population which seek to break away from 
the national political unity, and by their opposition to bring about 
administrative difficulties. To be sure, the country faces difl&cult 
problems of population, but there is no group of citizens struggling 
to secede; and in the same way the American has nothing in the 
way of emigration problems. Perhaps one may also say finally 
that social democracy, especially of the international variety, has 
taken such tenuous root that it can hardly be called a problem, 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION 157 

from the German point of view. For although there is a labour 
question, this is not the same as social democracy. The labour 
movements, as part of the great economic upheaval, are certainly 
one of the main difficulties to be overcome by the New World; but 
the social democratic solution, with its chiefly political significance, 
is essentially unknown to the American. All this we shall have to 
consider in other connections. Although this and that which 
worry the European appear hardly at all in American thought, there 
is, on the other hand, a great sea of problems which have merci- 
fully been spared to the European. It is due to the transitional 
quality of our time that on this sea of problems the most tempest- 
uous are those of an economic character. The fierce conflicts of 
recent Presidential elections have been waged especially over the 
question of currency, and it is not until now that the silver pro- 
gramme may be looked on as at least provisionally forgotten. 
These conflicts were immediately preceded by others which con- 
cerned protection and free-trade, and the outlook is clear that these 
two parties will again meet each other in battle array. 

Meanwhile the formation of large trusts has loomed up rapidly 
as a problem, and in this one sees the real influence of public opin- 
ion as against that of party politics, since both parties would doubt- 
less have preferred to leave the trusts alone. At the same time 
the great strikes, especially that of the Pennsylvania coal districts, 
have brought the conflicts between capital and labour so clearly to 
the national consciousness that the public attention is strained on 
this point. Others say that the most serious economic problem 
of the United States is the irrigation of the parched deserts of the 
West, where whole tracts of land, larger than Germany, can- 
not be cultivated for lack of water; while American engineers, 
however, now think it entirely possible with a sufficient outlay of 
money to irrigate this region artificially. Still others regard the 
tax issue as of prime importance; and the circle of those who be- 
lieve in single-tax reform is steadily growing. Every one agrees 
also that the status of national banks needs to be extensively 
modified; that the reckless devastation of forests must be stopped; 
and that the commercial relations between the states must be regu- 
lated by new laws. Some are hoping for new canals, others for the 
subvention of American ships. In short, the public mind is so 
filled with important economic questions that others which are 



1^8 THE AMERICANS 

merely political stand in the background; and, of course, polit- 
ical questions so tremendous as was once that of independence 
from England and the establishment of the Federation, or later, 
the slave question and the secession of the South, have not come 
up through four happy decades. 

Besides the economic problems there are many social problems 
which appear in those quarters where public opinion is best or- 
ganized, and spread from there more and more throughout 
political life; such are the question of woman's suffrage, and the half 
economic and half social problem of the extremes between poor 
and rich, extremes which were unknown to the New World in the 
early days of America and even until very recent times. The un- 
speakable misery in the slums of New York and Chicago, in which 
the lowest immigrants from Eastern Europe have herded them- 
selves together and form a nucleus for all the worst reprobates of 
the country, is an outcome of recent years and appeals loudly to 
the conscience of the nation. On the other side, the fatuous ex- 
travagance of millionaires threatens to poison the national sense 
of thrift and economy. 

Among these social problems there belongs specially the earnest 
desire of the best citizens to develop American art and science at 
a pace comparable with the extraordinary material progress of the 
country. Doubtless the admirable results which have here been 
obtained, came from the extraordinary earnestness with which 
public opinion has discussed these problems. The great develop- 
ment of universities, the increase in the number of libraries and 
scientific institutions, the creation of museums, the observance of 
beauty in public buildings, and a hundred other things would 
never have come about if public opinion had let things go their own 
way; here public opinion has consciously done its duty as a gov- 
erning power. Somewhat nearer the periphery of public thought 
there are various other social propagandas, as that for the relief of 
the poor and for improving penal institutions; the temperance 
movement is flourishing, and the more so in proportion as it gives 
up its fanatical eccentricities. Also the fight against what the 
American newspaper reader calls the "social evil," attracts more 
and more serious attention. 

Besides all these, there is a considerable number of purely polit- 
ical problems; first among these are the problems of population, 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION isg 

and notably the questions of immigration and of the negro; then 
come internal problems of government, such as civil service and 
municipal reforms, which especially engage the public eye; finally, 
the problems of external politics, in which the watchwords of im- 
perialism and the Monroe Doctrine can be heard shouted out above 
all others. At least we must briefly take our bearings, and see why 
these problems exist, although the treatment cannot be exhaustive. 

The first issue in the problem of population is, as we have said, 
that which concerns immigration; and this is just now rather up 
before public opinion since the last fiscal year which was closed 
with the beginning of July, 1903, showed the largest immigration 
ever reached, it being one-tenth greater than the previous record, 
which was for the year ending in 1882. The facts are as follows: 
The total immigration to the United States has been twenty million 
persons. The number of those who now live in the United States, 
but were born in foreign countries, is more than ten millions; and 
if we were to add to these those who, although born here, are of 
foreign parentage, the number comes up to twenty-six millions. 
Last year 857,000 immigrants came into the country. Out of the 
ten millions of the foreign-born population, 2,669,000 have come 
from Germany, and 1,619,000 from Ireland. 

The fluctuations in immigration seem to depend chiefly on the 
amount of prosperity in the United States, and, secondly, on the 
economic and political conditions which prevail from year to year 
in Europe. Up to 18 10 the annual immigration is estimated to 
have been about 6,000; then it was almost wholly interrupted for 
several years, owing to the political tension between the United 
States and England; as soon as peace was assured the immigration 
increased in 18 17 to 20,000; and in the year 1840 to 84,000. The 
hundred thousand mark was passed in 1842, and from then on the 
figure rose steadily, until in 1854 it amounted to 427,000. Then 
the number fell off rapidly. It was a time of business depression 
in the United States, and, moreover, the slavery agitation was al- 
ready threatening a civil war. The immigration was least in 1861, 
when it had sunk to 91,000. Two years later it began to rise 
again, and in 1873 was almost half a million. And again there 
followed a few years of business depression, with its correspond- 
ingly lessened immigration. But the moment economic condi- 
tions improved, immigration set in faster than ever before, and in 



i6o THE AMERICANS 

1882 was more than three-quarters of a million. Since 1883 the 
average number of persons coming in has been 450,000, the varia- 
tion from year to year being considerable. The business reverses 
of 1893 cut the number down to one-half, but since 1897 it has 
steadily risen again. 

Such bare figures do not show that which is most essential from 
the point of view of public opinion, since the quality of the immi- 
gration, depending as it does on the social condition of the coun- 
tries from which it comes, is the main circumstance. In the 
decade between i860 and 1870, 2,064,000 European wanderers 
came to the American shores; of these 787,000 were Germans, 
568,000 English, 435,000 Irish, 109,000 Scandinavians, 38,000 
Scotch, and 35,000 French. Now for the decade between 1890 
and 1900 the total number was 3,844,000; of these Germany con- 
tributed 543,000, Ireland 403,000, Norway and Sweden 325,000, 
England 282,000, Scotland 60,000, and France 36,000. On the 
other hand, we find for the first time three countries represented 
which had never before sent any large number of immigrants; 
Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. In the decade ending 1870 
there were only 11,000 Italians, 7,000 Austrians, and 4,000 Rus- 
sians, while in the decade ending in the year 1900 the Russian 
immigrants, who are mostly Poles and Jews, numbered 588,000, 
the Austrian and Hungarian 597,000, and the Italian no less 
than 655,000; and the proportion of these three kinds of immi- 
grants is steadily increasing. In the year 1903 Germany sent 
only 40,000, Ireland 35,000, and England 26,000; while Russia 
sent 136,000, Austria-Hungary 206,000, and Italy 230,000. Here- 
in lies the problem. 

A few further figures may help to make the situation clearer. 
For instance, it is interesting to know what proportion of the total 
emigration from Europe came to America. In round numbers 
we may say that since 1870 Europe has lost 20,000,000 souls by 
emigration, and that some 14,000,000 of these, that is, more than 
two-thirds, have ultimately made their homes in the United States 
of America. Of the German emigrants some 85 or 90 per cent, 
have gone to the United States; of the Scandinavian as many as 
97 per cent.; while of the English and Italian only 66 and 45 per 
cent, respectively. It is worth noting, moreover, that in spite of 
the extraordinary increase in immigration, the percentage of 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION i6i 

foreign-born population has not increased; that is, the increase 
of native-born inhabitants has kept up with the immigration. In 
1850 there were a few more than two million foreign-born inhab- 
itants, in i860 more than four millions, in 1870 there were five and 
a half millions, in 1880 six and a half millions, in 1890 nine and 
a quarter millions, and in 1900 ten and one-third millions. In 
1850 these foreigners amounted, it is true, to only 11 per cent, of 
the population; but in i860 they had already become 15 per cent, 
of the whole, and diminished in 1870 to 14.4 percent., in 1880 to 
13.3 per cent.; in 1890 they were 14.8 per cent., and in 1900 13.6 
per cent. 

The State of New York has the largest number of foreigners, 
and in the last fifty years the percentage of foreigners has risen 
steadily from 21 per cent, to 26 per cent. Pennsylvania stands 
second in this respect, and Illinois third. On the other hand, the 
small states have the largest percentage of foreign population. 
North Dakota has 35 per cent, and Rhode Island 31 per cent. 
The Southern states have fewest foreigners of any. These figures 
are, of course, greatly changed if we add to them the persons who 
were not themselves born in other countries, but of whom one or 
both parents were foreigners. In this way the foreign popula- 
tion in the so-called North Atlantic States is 51 per cent., and is 
34 per cent, throughout the country. If a foreigner is so defined, 
the cities of New York and Chicago are both 77 per cent, foreign. 

These figures are enough by way of mere statistics. The thing 
which arouses anxiety is not the increasing number of immigrants, 
but the quality of them, which grows continually worse. Just fifty 
years ago the so-called Know-Nothings made the anti-foreign 
sentiment the chief plank of their programme, but the "pure" 
American propaganda of the Know-Nothings was forgotten in the 
excitement which waged over slavery; and the anti-foreign issue 
has never since that time been so brutally stated. There has al- 
ways been much objection to the undeniable evils involved in this 
immigration, and the continual cry for closer supervision and re- 
striction of immigration has given rise to several new legal meas- 
ures. Partly, this movement has been the expression of industrial 
jealousy, as when, for instance. Congress in 1885, in an access of 
protectionist fury, forbade tlje immigration of "contract labour," 
that is, forbade any one to land who had already arranged to fill 



i62 THE AMERICANS 

a certain position. This measure was meant to protect the work- 
men from disagreeable competition. But right here the believers 
in free industry object energetically. It is just the contract labour 
from the Old World which brings new industries and a new de- 
velopment of old industries into the country, and such a quicken- 
ing of industry augments the demand for labour to the decided 
advantage of native workmen. The law still stands in writing, 
but in practice it appears to be extensively corrected, since it is 
very easily evaded. 

The more important measures, however, have arisen less from 
industrial than from social and moral grounds. Statistics have 
been carefully worked up again and again in order to show 
that the poor-houses and prisons contain a much larger percent- 
age of foreigners than their proportionate numbers in the com- 
munity warrant. In itself this will be very easy to understand, 
owing to the unfavourable conditions under which the foreigner 
must find himself, particularly if he does not speak English, in his 
struggle for existence in a new land. But most striking has been 
the manner in which the magic of statistics has shown its ability 
to prove anything it will; for other statistics have shown that if cer- 
tain kinds of crime are considered, the foreign-born Americans 
are the best children the nation has. The question of illiter- 
acy has been discussed in similar fashion. The percentage of 
immigrants who can neither read nor write has seemed alarm- 
mgly high to those accustomed to the high cultivation of the north- 
eastern states, but gratifyingly small to those familiar with the 
negro population in the South. One unanimous opinion has been 
reached; it is that the country is bound to keep out such elements 
from its borders as are going to be a public burden. At first idiots 
and insane persons, criminals, and paupers made up this undesir- 
able class, but the definition of those who are not admitted to the 
country has been slowly broadened. And since the immigration 
laws require the steamship companies to carry back at their own 
expense all immigrants who are not allowed to land, the selection 
is actually made in the European ports of embarkation. In this 
wise the old charge that the agents of European packet companies 
encouraged the lowest and worst individuals of the Old World to 
expend their last farthing for a ticket to the New World, has 
gradually died out. Nevertheless, in the last year, 5,812 persons 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION 163 

were sent back for lack of visible means of support, 51 because 
of criminal record, and 1773 by reason of infectious diseases. 

The fact remains, however, that the social mires of every large 
city teem with foreigners, and that among these masses the 
worst evils of municipal corruption find favourable soil, that all 
the sporadic outbreaks of anarchy are traceable to these foreign- 
ers, and that the army of the unemployed is mostly recruited from 
their number. These opinions were greatly strengthened when 
that change in the racial make-up set in which we have followed by 
statistics, and which a census of the poorer districts in the large 
cities quickly proves: Italians, Russian Jews, Galicians, and 
Roumanians everywhere. The unprejudiced American asks with 
some concern whether, if this stream of immigration is con- 
tinued, it will not undermine the virility of the American people. 
The American nation will continue to fulfil its mission so long as 
it is inspired with a spirit of independence and self-determination; 
and this instinct derives from the desire of freedom possessed by 
all the Germanic races. In this way the German, Swedish, and 
Norwegian newcomers have adapted themselves at once to the 
Anglo-Saxon body politic, while the French have remained in- 
trinsically strangers. Their number, however, has been very 
small. But what is to happen if the non-Germanic millions of 
Italians, Russians, and Turks are to pour in unhindered ^. It is 
feared that they will drag down the high and independent spirit 
of the nation to their low and unworthy ideals. Already many 
citizens wish to require of the immigrants a knowledge of the 
English language, or to make a certain property qualification by 
way of precaution against unhappy consequences, or perhaps to 
close entirely for awhile the portals of the nation, or, at least, to 
make the conditions of naturalization considerably harder in 
order that the Eastern European, who has never had a thought 
of political freedom, shall not too quickly receive a suffrage in the 
freest democracy of the world. And those most entitled to an 
opinion unconditionally demand at the least the exclusion of all 
illiterates. 

Against all this there stand the convictions of certain rather 
broader circles of people who point with pride at that great Ameri- 
can grist-mill, the public school, which is supposed to take the 
foreign youth into its hopper, grind him up quickly and surely, and 



i64 THE AMERICANS 

turn him out into good American material. It is, in fact, aston- 
ishing to look at the classes in the New York schools down on the 
East Side, where there is not a child of American parentage, and 
yet not one who will admit that he is Italian, Russian, or Armen- 
ian. All these small people declare themselves passionately to be 
"American,'' with American patriotism and American pride; and 
day by day shows that in its whole system of public institutions 
the nation possesses a similar school for the foreign-born adult. 
Grey-haired men and adolescent youths, who in their native coun- 
tries would never have emerged from their dull and cringing ex- 
istence, hardly touch the pavement of Broadway before they find 
themselves readers of the newspaper, frequenters of the political 
meetings, and in a small way independent business men; and they 
may, a few years later, be conducting enterprises on a large scale. 
They wake up suddenly, and although in this transformation 
every race lends its own colour to the spirit of self-determination, 
nevertheless the universal trait, the typical American trait, can 
appear in every race of man, if only the conditions are favourable. 
In the same direction it is urged once more that America needs 
the labour of these people. If Southern and Eastern Europe had 
not given us their cheaper grades of workmen, we should not have 
been able to build our roads or our railroads, nor many other 
things which we have needed. In former decades this humble 
role fell to the Germans, the Scandinavians, and the Irish, and the 
opposition against their admission was as lively as it now is against 
the immigrants from the south and east of Europe; while the de- 
velopment of the country has shown that they have been an eco- 
nomic blessing; and the same thing, it is said, will be true of the 
Russians and Poles. There are still huge territories at our dis- 
posal which are virtually unpopulated, untold millions can still 
employ their strength to the profit of the whole nation, and it 
would be madness to keep out the willing and peaceable workers. 
Moreover, has it not been the proud boast of America that her 
holy mission was to be a land of freedom for every oppressed in- 
dividual, an asylum for every one who was persecuted ? In the 
times then of her most brilliant prosperity is she to be untrue to 
her noble role of protectress, and leave no hope to those who have 
been deprived of their human rights by Russian or Turkish 
despots, by Italian or Hungarian extortionists, to disappoint their 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION 165 

belief that at least in the New World even the most humble man 
has his rights and will be received at his true value ? Thus the 
opinions differ, and public opinion at large has come as yet to no 
decision. 

A curious feature in the immigration problem is the Chinese 
question, which has occasioned frequent discussion on the Pacific 
coast. The Chinaman does not come here to enjoy the blessings 
of American civilization, but merely in order to earn a competence 
in a short time so that he can return to his Asiatic home and be 
forever provided for. He does not bring his family with him, nor 
attempt in any way to adapt himself; he keeps his own costume, 
stays apart from his white neighbours, and lives, as for instance 
in the Chinese Quarter of San Francisco, on such meagre nourish- 
ment and in such squalid dwellings that he can save up wealth 
from such earnings as an American workman could hardly live on. 
A tour through the Chinese sleeping-rooms in California is in fact 
one of the most depressing impressions which the traveller on 
American soil can possibly experience. The individuals lie on 
large couches, built over one another in tiers, going quite up to the 
ceiling; and in twenty-four hours three sets of sleepers will have 
occupied the beds. Under such conditions the number of new- 
comers steadily increased because large commercial firms im- 
ported more and more coolie labour. Between 1870 and 1880 
more than 122,000 had come into the country. Then Congress 
began to oppose this immigration, and since 1879 ^^^ experiment- 
ed with various laws, until now the Chinese workman is almost 
wholly excluded. According to the last census there were only 
81,000 Chinese in the whole United States. 

More attractive than the yellow immigrants to these shores are 
the red-skinned aborigines of the land, the Indians, whom the 
Europeans found when they landed. The world is too much in- 
clined, however, to consider the fate of the Indian in a false light, 
just because his manner of life captures the fancy and his pic- 
turesque barbarity has often attracted the poet. The American 
himself is rather inclined to see in his treatment of the Indian a 
grave charge against his own nation, and to find himself guilty of 
the brutal extermination of a native race. To arrive at such an 
opinion he assumes that in former centuries great tribes of Indians 
scoured the tremendous hunting-grounds of the land. But science 



i66 THE AMERICANS 

has done away with this fanciful picture, and we know to-day that 
these milHons of natives never existed. There are to-day about 
270,000 Redskins, and it is very doubtful whether the number was 
ever much greater. It is true, of course, that between Central 
America and the Arctic Sea, hundreds of different Indian lan- 
guages were spoken, and many of these languages have twenty or 
thirty different dialects. But the sole community in which such 
a dialect developed would include only a few hundred persons, and 
broad tracts of land would lie between the neighbouring communi- 
ties. They used to live in villages, and wandered over the country 
only at certain seasons of the year in order to hunt, fish, and collect 
fruits. 

As soon as the European colonies established themselves in the 
country the Indians used to take part in their wars, and on such 
occasions were supplied by the colonists with arms and employed 
as auxiliary forces. But the delights of these new methods of war- 
fare, which they learned quickly, broke up their own peaceful life. 
The new weapons were employed for war between the Indian 
races, and eventually were turned by the Indians against the 
white settlers themselves. But, after all, the peaceful contact of 
Indians and whites was more productive of results. Only the 
French and Spanish permitted a mixture of the races, and in 
Canada especially to-day there is a mixed race of French and 
Indians; while in Mexico a large part of the inhabitants is Span- 
ish and Indian. The truly American population sought above all 
else peaceably to disseminate its own culture; some Indian races 
became agricultural and devoted themselves to certain industrial 
pursuits. 

Since the time when the United States gained actual possession 
of a larger part of the continent, a systematic Indian policy has 
been pursued, although administered largely, it must be admitted, 
in the American interests, and yet with considerable consideration 
of the natural inclinations of these hunting peoples. In various 
states, territories were set apart for them, which were certainly 
more than adequate to afford their sustenance; schools were built, 
and even institutions of higher learning; and through solemn 
treaties with their chiefs important rights were assigned to differ- 
ent races. To be sure, the main idea has always been to persuade 
the Indians to take up agricultural pursuits; to live merely by 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION i6y 

hunting flesh and eating wild fruits seemed hardly the thing at a 
time when millions of people were flocking westward out of 
Europe. Therefore, with every new treaty, the Indian reserva- 
tions have been made smaller and smaller. The Indians, who 
would have preferred always to keep up their wild hunting life, 
felt, and still feel, that this has been unjust, and certainly many 
of their racial peculiarities have made it difficult to adapt Ameri- 
can legal traditions fairly to their needs. The Indians had no 
idea of the private ownership of the soil; they considered every- 
thing as belonging to their tribe, and least of all had they any 
notion of the inheritance of property in the American sense. 
The Indian children belonged to the mother's family and the 
mother never belonged to the tribe of the father. 

Although all these sources of friction have led the Indian to feel 
unjustly treated, it is still true that there has been scarcely any 
actually destructive oppression. The very races which have been 
influenced most by American culture have developed favourably. 
Last year the Indian mortality was 4,728, and the number of 
births 4,742; the Indians are, therefore, not dying out. The 
largest community is in the so-called Indian Territory and con- 
sists of 86,000 people, while there are 42,000 in Arizona. The 
several Indian reservations together embrace 117,420 square 
miles. 



The Indian question is the least serious problem of all those 
which concern population in America; by far the most diflftcult 
is the negro question. The Indian lives within certain reserva- 
tions, but the negro lives everywhere side by side with the Ameri- 
can. So also the Indian troubles are narrowly confined to a small 
reservation in the great field of American problems, but the negro 
question is met everywhere in American thought, and in connec- 
tion with every American interest. There could hardly be a 
greater contrast than that between the Indian and the negro; the 
former is proud, self-contained, selfish and revengeful, passionate 
and courageous, keen and inventive. The negro, on the other 
hand, is subservient, yielding, almost childishly good natured, 
lazy and sensual, without energy or ambition, outwardly apt to 
learn, but without any spirit of invention or intellectual inde- 



i68 THE AMERICANS 

pendence. And still one ought not to speak of these millions of 
people as if they were of one type. On the Gulf of Mexico there 
are regions where the black population lives almost wholly sunk 
in the superstitions of its African home; while in Harvard Uni- 
versity a young negro student has written creditable essays on 
Kant and Hegel. And between these opposite poles exists a 
population of about nine millions. 

The negro population of America does not increase quite so 
rapidly as the white, and yet in forty years it has increased two- 
fold. In the year i860, before the slaves were freed, there were 
4,441,000 blacks; in 1870,4,880,000; in 1880,6,580,000; in 1890, 
7,470,000; in 1900, 8,803,000. In view of this considerable in- 
crease of the negro, it is not to be expected that the problem will 
lose anything of its urgency by the more rapid growth of the white 
population. And at the same time the physical contrast between 
the races is in no wise decreasing, because there is no mixing of 
the white and black races to-day, as there very frequently was be- 
fore the war. It will not be long before the coloured population 
will be twice the entire population which Canada to-day has. These 
people are distributed geographically, so that much the largest 
part lives in those states which before the war practised slavery. 
To be sure, an appreciable part has wandered into the northern 
states, and the poorer quarters of the large cities are well infiltrated 
with blacks. Four-fifths, however, still remain in the South, 
owing probably to climatic conditions; the negro race thrives 
better in a warm climate. But it belongs there economically also, 
and has nearly every reason for staying there in future. 

Nevertheless, the negro question is by no means a problem for 
the South alone; the North has its interests, and it becomes clearer 
all the time that the solution of the problem will depend in large 
part on the co-operation of the North. In the first place it was the 
North which set the negro free, and which, therefore, is partly re- 
sponsible for what he is to-day; and it must lie with the North to 
decide whether the great dangers which to-day threaten can in any 
way be obviated. Europe has so far considered only one feature 
of the negro question — that of slavery. All Europe read "Uncle 
Tom's Cabin," and thought the difficulty solved as soon as the 
negro was freed from his chains and the poorest negro came into 
his human right of freedom. Europe was not aware that in this 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION i6g 

wise still greater problems were created, and that greater springs 
of misery and misfortune for the negro there took their origin. 
Nor does Europe realize that opposition between whites and blacks 
has never been in the history of America so sharp and bitter and 
full of hatred as it is to-day. Just in the last few years the hatred 
has grown on both sides, so that no friend of the country can look 
into the future without misgivings. " Das eben ist die Frucht der 
bosen Tat." 

Yet where did the sin begin .? Shall the blame fall on the Eng- 
lish Parliament, which countenanced and even encouraged the 
trade in human bodies, or shall it fall on the Southern States, which 
kept the slaves in ignorance, and even threatened to punish any one 
who should instruct them ? Or shall it fall on the Northern States, 
which were chiefly responsible for immediately granting to the 
freedmen, for the sake of party politics, all prerogatives of fellow- 
citizenship ? Or shall the fault be put on the negro himself, who 
saw in his freedom from slavery an open door to idleness and 
worthlessness t 

For generations the white man has regarded the black man as 
merchandise, has forcibly dragged him from his African jungles to 
make him work in ignorance and oppression on the cotton, rice, and 
tobacco fields of a white master. Then all at once he was made 
free and became an equal citizen in a country which, in its abilities, 
its feelings, its laws, and its Constitution, had the culture of two 
thousand years behind it. How has this emancipation worked on 
these millions .? The first decade was a period of unrest and of 
almost frightened awakening to the consciousness of physical free- 
dom, in the midst of all the after-effects of the fearful war. The 
negro was terrified by Southern secret societies which were plan- 
ning vengeance, and confused by the dogmas of unscrupulous poli- 
ticians who canvassed the states which had been so savagely 
shaken by the war, in order to gather up whatever might be found; 
and he was confused by a thousand other contradictions in public 
sentiment. Nowhere was there a secure refuge. Then followed 
the time in which the negroes hoped to employ their political power 
to advantage; the negroes were to be prospered by their ballot. 
But they found this to be a hopeless mistake. Then they believed 
a better way was to be found in the public schools and books. But 
the negro was again turned back; he needed not knowledge but 



I'jo THE AMERICANS 

the power to do, not books but a trade. So his rallying-cry has 
shifted. The blacks have never lost heart, and in a certain sense 
it must in justice be added the whites have never lacked good-will. 
And yet, after forty years of freedom, the results are highly dis- 
couraging. 

On the outside there is much that speaks of almost brilliant suc- 
cess. The negroes have to-day in the United States 450 newspa- 
pers and four magazines; 350 books have been written by ne- 
groes; half of all the negro children are regularly taught in schools; 
there are 30,000 black teachers, school-houses worth more than 
^10,000,000, forty-one seminaries for teachers, and churches worth 
over ^25,000,000. There are ten thousand black musicians and 
hundreds of lav^ers. The negroes own four large banks, 
130,000 farms, and 150,000 homes, and they pay taxes on ^650,- 
000,000 worth of real and personal property. The four past 
decades have therefore brought some progress to the freedman. 
And yet, in studying the situation, one is obliged to say that these 
figures are somewhat deceptive. The majority of negroes are 
still in such a state of poverty and misery, of illiteracy and mental 
backwardness, that the negroes who can be at all compared with 
the middle class of Americans are vanishingly few. Even the 
teachers and the doctors and pastors seem only very little to differ 
from the proletariat; and although there is many a negro of 
means, it is still a question whether he is able to enjoy his property, 
whether the dollar in his hand is the same as in the hand of a 
white man. 

A part of the black population has certainly made real progress, 
but a larger part is humanly more degraded than before the slaves 
were freed; and if one looks at it merely as a utilitarian, consider- 
ing only the amount of pleasure which the negroes enjoy, one can- 
not doubt that the general mass of negroes was happier under 
slavery. Their temperament is crueller to them than any planta- 
tion master could have been. The negro — we must have no 
illusions on that point — has partly gone backward. The capacity 
for hard work which he acquired in four generations of slavery, 
he has in large part lost again during forty years of freedom; 
although, indeed, the tremendous cotton harvests from the 
Southern States are gathered almost wholly by negro labour. It 
must be left to anthropology to find out whether the negro 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION 171 

race is actually capable of such complete development as 
the Caucasian race has come to after thousands of years of 
steady labour and progress. The student of social politics need 
not go into such speculations; he faces the fact that the African 
negro has not had the thousands of years of such training, and 
therefore, although he might be theoretically capable of the highest 
culture, yet practically he is still unprepared for the higher 
duties of civilization. Under the severe discipline of slavery he 
overcame his lazy instincts and learned how^ to vv^ork both in the 
field and in the shop, according as the needs of his master required, 
and became in this w^ay a useful member of society; but he v^as re- 
lieved of all other cares. His owner provided him w^ith house and 
nourishment, cared for him in illness, and protected him like any 
other valuable piece of property. 

All this w^as suddenly changed on the great day w^hen freedom 
v^as declared; no one compelled the negro to v^ork then; he M^as 
free to follow his instinct to do nothing; no one punished him when 
he gave himself over to sensuality and indolence. But on the other 
side nobody now took care of him; in becoming his own master he 
remained his own slave. He was suddenly pushed into the strug- 
gle for existence, and the less he was forced to learn the less he was 
ready for the fight. There thus grew up an increasing mass of 
poverty-stricken negroes, among whom immorality and crime 
could thrive; and oftentimes the heavy weight of this mass has 
dragged down with it those who would have been better. Worst 
of all, it has strengthened the aversion of the whites a hundred-fold, 
and the best members of the negro race have had to suffer for the 
laziness, the sensuality, and the dishonesty of the great masses. 

The real tragedy is not in the lives of the most miserable, but 
in the lives of those who wish to rise, who feel the mistakes of their 
fellow-negroes and the injustice of their white opponents, who de- 
sire to assimilate everything high and good in the culture about 
them, and yet who know that they do not, strictly speaking, belong 
to such a culture. The negroes of the lower type are sunk in their 
indifference; they while away the hours in coarse enjoyments, and 
are perfectly content with a few watermelons while they dance and 
sing. The onlooker is disheartened, but they themselves laugh like 
children. The better negroes, on the other hand, feel all the hard- 
ship and carry the weight of the problem on their souls. They go 



iy2 THE AMERICANS 

through life fully conscious of an insoluble contradiction in their 
existence; they feel that it is denied them to participate immedi- 
ately in life, and that they must always see themselves with the eyes 
of others, and lead in a way a double existence. As one of them 
has recently said, they are always conscious of being a problem. 

They themselves have not chosen their lot, they did not come of 
tlieir own accord from Africa, nor gladly take on the yoke of slav- 
ery; nor were they by their own efforts saved from slavery. They 
have been passive at every turn of fortune. Now they wish to com- 
mence to do their best and to give their best, and they have to do 
this in an environment for which they are wholly unprepared and 
which is wholly beyond them in its culture They have not them- 
selves worked out this civilization; they belong historically in an- 
other system, and remain here at best mere imitators. And the 
better they succeed in being like their neighbours, the more they 
become unlike what they ought naturally to develop into. 

This feeling of disparateness leads directly to the feeling of em- 
bitterment. In the general masses, however, it is the feeling of 
incompetence to support the struggle for existence successfully 
which turns necessarily into a bitter hatred of the whites. And the 
more the lack of discipline and the laziness of the black cause the 
whites to hold him in check, so much the more brightly burns this 
hatred. But all students of the South believe that this hatred 
has come about wholly since the negro was declared free. The 
slave was faithful and devoted to his master, who took care of him; 
he hated work, but did not hate the white man, and took his state 
of slavery as a matter of course, much as one takes one's inability 
to fly. A patriarchal condition prevailed in the South before the 
war, in spite of the representations made by political visionaries. 
Indeed, it is sometimes difficult not to doubt whether it was 
necessary to do away with slavery so suddenly and forcibly; 
whether a good deal of self-respect would not have been saved on 
both sides, and endless hatred, embitterment, and misery spared, 
if the Northern States had left the negro question to itself, to be 
solved in time through organic rather than mechanical means. 
Perhaps slavery would then have gone gradually over into some 
form of patriarchal relation. 

It is too late to philosophize on this point; doctrinarianism has 
shaped the situation otherwise. The arms of the Civil War have 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION 775 

decided in favour of the North. It is dismal, but it must be said 
that the actual events of the ensuing years of peace have decided 
rather in favour of the viev^ of the South. To comprehend this 
fully, it is not enough to ask merely, as w^e have done so far, how 
the negro now feels; but more specially to ask what the American 
now thinks. 

What is to-day the relation between the white man and the ne- 
gro } There is a difference here between the North and the South, 
and yet one thing is true for both: the American feels that the 
cleft between the white and black races is greater now than ever 
before. So far as the North is concerned, the political view of the 
problem has probably changed very little. Specially the New 
England States, whose exalted ethical motives were beyond all 
doubt — as perhaps is not so certain of the Middle States — still 
sympathize to-day with the negro as a proper claimant of human 
rights. But unfortunately one may believe in the negro in the ab- 
stract, and yet shrink from contact with him in the concrete. The 
personal dislike of the black man, one might even call it an aesthet- 
ic antipathy, is really more general and wide-spread in the North 
than in the South. South of Washington one can scarcely be 
shaved except by a negro, while north of Philadelphia a white man 
would quite decline to patronize a coloured barber. A Southerner 
is even not averse to having a black nurse in the house, while in the 
Northern States that would never be thought of. Whenever the 
principle is to be upheld, the negro is made welcome in the North. 
He is granted here and there a small public office; he delivers ora- 
tions, and is admitted to public organizations; he marches in the 
parades of war veterans, and a few negroes attend the universities. 
And still there is no real social intercourse between the races. In 
no club or private house and on no private occasions does one meet 
a negro. And here the European should bear specially in mind 
that negroes are not seldom men and women whose faces are per- 
haps as white as any Yankee's, and who often have only the faint- 
est taint of African blood. 

At the very best the Northerner plays philanthropist toward the 
negro, takes care of his schools and churches, helps him to help 
himself, and to carve out his economic freedom. But even here the 
feeling has been growing more and more in recent years that the 
situation is somehow fundamentally false, and that the North has 



174 ^^^ AMERICANS 

acted hastily and imprudently in accepting the emancipated negro 
on terms of so complete equality. The feeling of dissatisfaction is 
growing in the North, and it is not an accident that the negro pop- 
ulation of the North grows so slowly, although the negro is always 
ready to wander, and would crowd in great numbers to the 
North if he might hope to better his fortunes there. The negro 
feels, however, intensely that he is still less a match for the ener- 
getic Northerner in the industrial competition than for the white 
man of the South, and that it is often easier to endure the 
hatred of the Southerner than the coldly theoretical sufferance of 
the Northerner when joined, as it is, with a personal distaste so 
pronounced. 

In the South it is quite different. There could hardly be an aes- 
thetic aversion for the race, when for generations blacks and whites 
have lived together, when all the servants of the home have been 
coloured, and the children have grown up on the plantations with 
their little black playmates. There has been a good deal in the easy 
good-nature of the negro which the Southern white man has always 
found sympathetic, and he responded in former times to the dis- 
interested faithfulness of the slaves with a real attachment. And 
although this may have been such fondness as one feels for a faith- 
ful dog or an intelligent horse, there was in it, nevertheless, no trace 
of that physical repulsion felt by the Northerner. The same is fun- 
damentally true to-day, and the rhetorical emphasis of the physical 
antipathy toward the black which one finds in Southern speeches 
is certainly in part hypocritical. It is true that even to-day the 
poorest white man would think himself too good to marry the 
most admirable coloured woman; but the reason of this would lie 
in social principles, and not, as politicians would like to make 
it appear, in any instinctive racial aversion, since so long as the 
negroes were in slavery the whites had no aversion to such per- 
sonal contamination. 

The great opposition which now exists is twofold: it is on the 
one hand political and on the other social. The political situation 
of the South has been indeed dominated in the last forty years by 
the negro question. There have been four distinct periods of de- 
velopment; the first goes from the end of the Civil War to 1875. 
It was the time when the negro had first received the suffrage and 
become a political factor, the most dreary time which the South 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION i;s 

ever knew. It was economically ruined, was overrun with a dis- 
gusting army of unscrupulous politicians, who wanted nothing but 
to pervert the ignorant coloured voters for the lowest political ends. 
The victorious party in the North sent its menials down to organ- 
ize the coloured quarry, and by mere numbers to outdo all inde- 
pendent activities of the white population. 

One can easily understand why a Southern historian should say 
that the Southern States look back without bitterness on the years 
of the war, when brave men met brave men on the field of battle; 
but that they are furious when they remember the years which fol- 
lowed, when the victors, partly out of mistaken philanthropy, 
partly out of thoughtlessness and indifference, and partly out of 
evil intent, hastened to put the reins of government into the hands 
of a race which was hardly out of African barbarism; and thus ut- 
terly disheartened the men and women who had built up the splen- 
did culture of the Old South. Perhaps there was no phase of 
American history, he says, so filled with poetry and romantic charm 
as the life of the South in the last ten years before the war; and 
certainly no period has been so full of mistakes, uncertainties, and 
crime as the decade immediately following, A reaction had to 
come, and it came in the twenty years between 1875 and 1895. 
The South betook itself to devious methods at the ballot-box. It 
was recognized that falsification of election returns was an evil, but 
it was thought to be a worse evil for the country to be handed over 
to the low domination of illiterate negroes. The political power of 
the negro has been broken in this way. Again and again the same 
method was resorted to, until finally the public opinion of the South 
approved of it, and those who juggled with the ballot-box were 
not pursued by the arm of the law, because the general opinion 
was with them. 

There has been another and more important fact. Slowly all 
party opposition between the whites vanished, and the race ques- 
tion became the sole political issue. To be sure, there have been 
free-traders and protectionists in the South, and representatives of 
all other party principles; but all genuine party life flagged and all 
less important distinctions vanished at the ballot-box when the 
whites rallied against the blacks, and since the negroes voted inva- 
riably with the Republican party, which had set them free, the en- 
tire white population of the South has become Democratic. By this 



1^6 THE AMERICANS 

political consolidation, the power of the negro has been further 
restricted. 

People have gradually become convinced, however, that political 
life stagnates when large states have only the one fixed idea, as if 
hypnotized by the race issue. The need has been felt anew of par- 
ticipating once more in all the great problems which interest the 
nation and which create the parties. The South looks back long- 
ingly on the time when it used to furnish the most brilliant states- 
men of the nation. The South has become also aware that so soon 
as public opinion allows a systematic corruption of the ballot-box, 
then every kind of selfishness and corruption has an easy chance 
to creep in. 

Let once the election returns be falsified in order to wipe out a 
negro majority, and they may be falsified the next time in favour of 
some commercial conspiracy. An abyss opens up which is truly 
bottomless. So a third period has arrived. In place of nullifying 
the negro suffrage by illegal means, the South has been thinking 
out legal measures for limiting it. The Constitution prescribes 
merely that no one shall be deprived of his vote by reason of his 
colour, but it has been left to the several states to determine what 
the other conditions shall be which govern the right to vote. Thus 
any state is free to place a certain property condition, or to require 
a certain degree of education from every man who votes; but all 
such conditions must apply to all inhabitants of the state alike; 
thus, for instance, in four states, and only in those four, do women 
enjoy the suff'rage. Now the Southern States have commenced to 
make extensive use of this state privilege. They are not allowed 
to exclude the negro as a negro since the Northern States have 
added the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and there 
would be no hope of altering this. But so long as the educational 
status of the negro is so far behind that of the white man, the num- 
ber of those who cannot read is still so large that a heavy blow is 
struck at negro political domination when a state decides to re- 
strict the suffrage to those who can read and understand the Con- 
stitution. It is clear that at the same time the test of this which 
necessarily has to be made leaves the coveted free-play to the 
white man's discretion. 

The last few years have witnessed a great advance of this new 
movement. The political power of the negro is less than ever, and 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION 177 

the former illegal measures to circumvent it are no longer needed. 
It cannot be denied that in two ways this works directly in the in- 
terests of civilization. On the one hand, it incites the negro popu- 
lation to take measures for the education of its children, since by 
going to school the negro can comply with the conditions of suf- 
frage. On the other hand, it frees Southern politics from the op- 
pressive race question, and allows real party problems to become 
once more active issues among the whites. The political contrast 
is, therefore, to-day somewhat lessened, although both parties re- 
gard it rather as a mere cessation of hostilities; since it is by no 
means certain that Northern political forces at Washington will 
not once more undo this infringement on the negroes' rights, and 
whether once more, in case of a real party division between the 
Southern whites, the negroes will not have the deciding vote. If 
the doctrinarianism of the North should actually prevail and be 
able to set aside these examinations in reading and in intelligence 
which have been aimed against the negro, on the ground that 
they are contrary to the Constitution, it would indeed frustrate a 
great movement toward political peace. When the abolitionists 
at the end of the Civil War granted the suffrage to the negroes, 
they were at least able to adduce one very good excuse; they 
claimed that the Southern States would continue in some new form 
to hold the negro in subjection if he was not protected by either a 
military guard or by his right to vote, and since the army was to be 
disbanded the right to vote was given him. To-day there is no 
such danger; the legal exclusion of the Southern negro from the 
ballot-box must be accounted an advance. 

The social question, however, is even more important to-day than 
the political one, and it is one which grows day by day. We have 
said already that the Southerner has no instinctive aversion to the 
negro race, and his desire for racial parity is not an instinct but a 
theory, of which the fathers of the present white man knew noth- 
ing. To be sure, the situation cannot be simply formulated, but it 
probably comes nearest to the truth to say that the white man's 
hatred is the inherited instinct of the slave-holder. In all his sen- 
timents the Southerner is dominated by the once natural feeling 
that the negro is his helpless subject. The white man is not cruel 
in this; he wants to protect the negro and to be kind, but he can 
allow him no will of his own. He has accustomed himself to the 



j'^8 THE AMERICANS 

slavish obedience of the negro, as the opium-eater is accustomed 
to his opium. And to give up the paralyzing drug is intolerable to 
his nervous system. 

The everywhere repeated cry that the purity of the race is in dan- 
ger, if social equality is established, is only a pretext; it is in truth 
the social equality itself which calls forth the hysterical excitement. 
No white man, for instance, in the South would go into the dining- 
room of a hotel in which a single negro woman should be sitting; 
but this is not because a mere proximity would be disagreeable, as 
it would actually be to the Northerner, but because he could not 
endure such appearance of equality. So soon as a little white 
child sits beside the negro woman, so that she is seen to be a ser- 
vant and her socially inferior station is made plain, then her pres- 
ence is no longer felt to be at all disagreeable. 

In his fight against social equality with the negro, the Southerner 
resorts to more and more violent means; and while he works him- 
self up to an increasing pitch of excitement by the energy of his 
opposition, the resulting social humiliation increases the embitter- 
ment of the negro. That no white hotel, restaurant, theatre, or 
sleeping-car is open to the black is a matter of course; this is vir- 
tually true also in the North. But it has contributed very much 
to renewed disaffection, that also the ordinary railroad trains and 
street cars begin to make a similar distinction. 

The South is putting a premium on every kind of harsh social 
affront to the black man, and relentlessly punishes the slightest 
social recognition. When the president of a negro college was the 
guest of a Northern hotel and the chamber-maid refused to put his 
room to rights and was therefore dismissed, the South got together, 
by a popular subscription, a large purse for this heroine. It is only 
from this point of view that one can understand the great excite- 
ment which swept through the South when President Roosevelt 
had the courage to invite to his table Booker T. Washington, the 
most distinguished negro of the country. Professor Basset, the 
historian, has declared, amid the fierce resentment of the South, 
that, with the exception of General Lee, Booker Washington is the 
greatest man who has been born in the South for a hundred years. 
But who inquires after the merits of a single man when the prin- 
ciple of social inequality is at stake .? If the President had worked for 
several months from early to late at his desk with Booker T. Wash- 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION lyg 

ington, the fact would have passed unnoticed. But it is simply un- 
pardonable that he invited him to the luncheon table, and even 
very thoughtful men have shaken their heads in the opinion that 
this affront to the social superiority of the white man will very 
sadly sharpen the mutual antagonism. 

We must not overlook in this connection the various minor cir- 
cumstances which have strengthened the lingering feeling of the 
slave-owner. First of all, there is the unrestrained sensuality of 
the negro, which has led him time after time to attempt criminal 
aggressions on white women, and so contributed infinitely to the 
misery of his situation. It is a gross exaggeration when the South- 
ern demagogue reiterates again and again that no man in the South 
can feel that his wife, his sister, or daughter is secure from the bes- 
tiality of the blacks; and yet it cannot be denied that such crimes 
are shockingly frequent, and they are the more significant, since 
the continual fear of this danger seriously threatens the growth of 
farming life with its lonely farm-houses. Here the barbarities of 
lynch law have come in, and the rapid growth of racial hatred may 
be seen in the increased number of lynchings during recent years. 
But every lynching reacts to inoculate hatred and cruel ferocity in 
the public organism, and so the bestial instincts and the lawless 
punishments work together to debase the masses in the Southern 
States. 

It is not only a question of the immorality of the negro and the 
lynch courts of'the white man, but in other ways the negro shows 
himself inclined to crime, and the white man to all sorts of lawless 
acts against him. The negroes are disproportionately represented 
in Southern prisons, although this comes partly from the fact that 
the black man is punished for the slightest misdemeanour, while 
the white man is readily let off". In fact, it is difficult in the South 
to find a jury to convict a white man of any crime done against a 
negro. This application of a two-fold standard of justice leads 
quickly to a general arbitrariness which fits only too well with the 
natural instincts of the slave-holder. Arbitrary privileges in place 
of equal rights have always been the essential point in his exist- 
ence, and so it happens that even where no negroes are in question 
Southern juries hand down verdicts which scandalize the whole 
country. Indeed, there is no doubt that secret attempts have even 
been made, in all sorts of devious forms, to re-establish the state of 



i8o THE AMERICANS 

slavery. For some small misdemeanour negroes are condemned to 
pay a very heavy fine, and to furnish this they have to let them- 
selves out to some sort of contract labour under v^hite masters, 
which amounts to the same thing as slavery. Here again the 
whole country is horrified when the facts come to be known. But 
no means have yet been thought of for lessening the bitter hatred 
which exists, and so long as the sharp social contrast remains there 
will continue to be evasions and violations of the law, to give vent 
to the hatred and bitter feeling. 

What now may one look for, that shall put an end to these 
unhappy doings .? The Africans have had their Zionists, who wish 
to lead them back to their native forests in Africa, and many peo- 
ple have recently fancied that the problem would be solved by for- 
cible deportation to the Philippines. These dreams are useless; 
nine million people cannot be dumped on the other side of the 
ocean, cannot be torn from their homes. Least of all could they be 
brought to combine with the entirely different population of the 
Philippines. More than that, the South itself would fight tooth and 
nail against losing so many labourers; it would be industrially 
ruined, and would be more grievously torn up than it was after the 
Civil War, if in fact some magic ship could carry every black to the 
negro republic of Liberia, on the African coast. For the same 
reason it is impracticable to bring together all negroes in one or 
two Southern States and leave them to work out their own salva- 
tion. In the first place, no state would be willing to draw this black 
lot, while the white population of the other Southern States would 
suffer fully as much. The student of social politics, finally, can- 
not doubt for a moment that the negro progresses only when he is 
in constant contact with white men, and degenerates with fearful 
speed when he is left to himself. 

Among those negroes who have been called to be the leaders of 
their people, and who form an independent opinion of the situa- 
tion, one finds two very different tendencies. One of these is to 
reform from the top down, the other from the bottom up. The 
energies of Dubois are typical of the first tendency, Booker Wash- 
ington's of the second. Dubois, and many of the most educated 
and advanced negroes with him, believe in the special mission of 
the negro race. The negro does not want to be, and ought not to 
be, a second order of American, but the United States are destined 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION i8i 

by Providence to develop two great and diverse but co-operating 
peoples, the Americans and the negroes. It is therefore the w^ork 
of the African not simply to imitate the white man's culture, but to 
develop independently a special culture suited to his own national 
traits. They feel instinctively that a few great men of special physi- 
ognomy, two or three geniuses coming from their race, will do more 
for the honour of their people and for the belief in its possibilities, 
than the slow elevation of the great mass. They lay strong em- 
phasis on the fact that in his music, religion, and humour the negro 
has developed strongly individual traits, and that the people who 
forty years ago were in slavery have developed in a generation under 
unfavourable circumstances a number of shining orators, politi- 
cians, and writers. Thus they feel a most natural ambition to make 
away for the best and strongest, to elevate them, and to incite them 
to their highest achievements. The ideal is thus, in the work of 
the most gifted leaders to present to the world a new negro culture, 
by which the right of independent existence for the black race in 
America may be secured. 

Booker Washington and his friends wish to go a quieter road; 
and he has with him the sympathies of the best white people in the 
country. They look for salvation not from a few brilliantly ex- 
ceptional negroes, but from the slow and steady enlightenment of 
the masses; and their real leaders are to be not those who accom- 
plish great things as individuals, but rather they who best serve 
in the slow work of uplifting their people. These men see clearly 
that there are to-day no indications of really great accomplish- 
ments and independent feats in the way of culture, and that such 
things are hardly to be looked for in the immediate future. At 
the very best it is a question of an unusual talent for imitating an 
alien culture. 

If, then, one can hardly speak of brilliant genius in the upper 
strata — and it is to be admitted that Booker Washington himself 
is not a really great, independent, and commanding personality 
— it would be on the other hand much more distorted to estimate 
the negro from his lowest strata, from the lazy and criminal indi- 
viduals. The great mass of negroes is uneducated and possesses 
no manual training for an occupation; but it is honest, healthy, and 
fit social material, which only needs to be trained in order to become 
valuable to the whole community. First of all, the negro ought to 



i82 THE AMERICANS 

learn what he has once learned as a slave — a manual trade; he 
should perfect himself in work of the hands or in some honest 
agricultural occupation, not seek to create a new civilization, but 
more modestly to identify his race with the destinies of the white 
nation by real, honest, thoughtful, true, and industrious labour. 
Brilliant writers they do not need so much as good carpenters and 
school-teachers; nor notable individual escapades in the tourney- 
field of culture so much as a general dissemination of technical 
training. They need schools for manual training and institutes 
for the development of technical teachers. 

Booker Washington's own institution in Tuskegee has set the 
most admirable example, and the most thoughtful men in the 
North and South alike are very ready to help along all his plans. 
They hope and believe that so soon as the masses of coloured 
people have begun to show themselves somewhat more useful to 
the industry of the country as hand-workers, expert labourers, and 
farmers, that then the mutual embitterment will gradually die out 
and the fight for social equality slowly vanish. For on this point 
the more thoughtful men do not deceive themselves; social equal- 
ity is nothing but a phrase when it is applied to the relation of mil- 
lions of people to other millions. Among the whites themselves 
no one ever thinks of any real social equality; the owner of a plan- 
tation no more invites his white workmen in to eat with him than 
he would invite a coloured man. And when the Southern white 
replies scornfully to any one who challenges his prejudices, with 
the convincing question, "Would you let your sister marry a nig- 
ger .f"' he is forgetting, of course, that he himself would not let his 
sister marry nine-tenths of the white men of his community. So- 
cial equality can be predicated only of small groups, and in all 
exactness only of individuals. 

Thus it might be said that peace is advanced to-day chiefly by 
the increasing exertions for the technical industrial education of 
the black workman. But it is not to be forgotten that the negro 
himself, and with him many philanthropists of the North, com- 
prehends the whole situation very differently from the Southern 
supporters of the movement. These latter are contented with 
recent tendencies, because the negro's vote is curtailed in the 
political sphere, and because he comes to be classed socially with 
the day-labourer and artisan. The negro, however, looks on this 



PROBLEMS OF POPULATION 183 

as a temporary stage in his development, and hopes in good time 
to outgrow it. He is glad that the election returns are no longer 
falsified on his account, and that legal means have been resorted 
to. But of course he hopes that he will soon grow beyond these 
conditions, and be finally favoured once more with the suffrage, 
just as any white man is. 

It is much the same in the social sphere. He may be satisfied 
for the present that the advantages of manual training and farm 
labour are brought to the fore, but this must only be to lead his 
race up step by step until it has developed from a mere working 
class to entire social equality. That which the negro approves 
for the moment is what any white man in the Southern States 
would fix as a permanent condition. And so it appears that even in 
this wise no real solution of the problem has been reached, al- 
though a cessation of hostilities has been declared. But all these 
efforts on the part of leaders and philanthropists, these delibera- 
tions of the best whites and blacks in both the North and South, 
are still far from carrying weight with the general public; and 
thus, although the beginnings toward improvement are good, it 
remains that on the outside the situation looks to-day darker than 
ever before. 

Whoever frees himself from theoretical doctrines will hardly 
doubt that the leading whites of the Southern States have to-day 
once more the better insight, since they know the negro better 
than the Northerners do. They demand that this limitation of 
the negro in his political rights and in his daily occupation shall 
be permanent, and that thus an organic situation shall come about 
in which the negro, although far removed from an undeserved 
slavery, shall be equally far from the complete enjoyment of that 
civilization which his own race has not worked out. That is, 
he is to be politically, economically, and socially dependent. If 
this had happened at the outset, the mutual hatred which now 
exists would never have been so fierce; and if the African suc- 
ceeds materially he will hardly notice the difference, while the 
white man will feel with satisfaction that his superiority has been 
vindicated. The condition of the island of Jamaica is a good in- 
stance in point. Its inhabitants are strikingly superior to the 
debased negroes of the Republic of Hayti. 

But it is not to be forgotten that history has repeatedly shown 



184. THE AMERICANS 

how impossible it is for a people numbering millions, with limited 
rights, to dwell in the midst of an entirely free race. Oppression 
and injustice constantly arise from the limitation of rights, and 
thence grow retaliation and crime. And the hour in which the 
American people narrow down the rights of ten million blacks 
may be the starting-point for fearful struggles. The fact remains 
that the real solution of the question is nowhere in sight. The 
negro question is the only really dark cloud on the horizon of the 
American nation. 



CHAPTER NINE 
Internal Political Problems 

THE problems of population, especially those concerning the 
immigration and the negro, have taken considerable of our 
attention. We shall be able to survey problems of internal 
politics more quickly, since we have already met most of them in 
considering the American form of government. The insane pro- 
gramme of those w^ho desire no government at all, that is, anarchy, 
is one of the American's political problems only when the deed of 
some foreign assassin gives him a sudden fright. Then all sorts 
of propositions are on foot to weed out anarchism stem and root; 
but after a little time they subside. One sees how difficult it is to 
draw the lines, and the idea of suppressing free political speech is 
too much against the fundamental principles of the American de- 
mocracy. But the fundamental principles of anarchism, or rather 
its fundamental confusions, have so little hope of influencing the 
conservative ideas of the Americans, that there need be no fear of 
anarchism creeping into the national mind. In so far as there is 
any such problem in America, it is connected solely with the ques- 
tion of immigration. Up to the present time, the government has 
been content to forbid acknowledged anarchists to land; but this 
involves such an un-American intermeddling with private con- 
victions that the regulation will hardly be tolerated much longer. 
The true American, in any case, believes in state ordinances and 
loves his governmental machinery. 

This apparatus itself of government has many details which 
offer problems, indeed, and are much discussed. Some of its ele- 
ments have been added recently by President Roosevelt; the most 
important of them is the newly created Department of Commerce 
and Labour. This new division of the government, with over ten 
thousand officials, embraces also the Bureau of Corporations, 



i86 THE AMERICANS 

which is designed to collect statistics regarding trusts and the 
overcoming of their influence; but the struggle promises to be a 
two-sided one. To the present administration belongs also the 
creation of a general staff for the Army, and on this head there 
seems to be a unanimous opinion that the Army is distinctly bene- 
fited by the measure. In some other directions, moreover, the 
make-up of the Army has become more similar to European mod- 
els; new schools of war have been founded and the plan of hold- 
ing great manoeuvres introduced. The weakness of the military 
system is that preferments go according to seniority. It is clear 
to all that a merely mechanical advancement of officers is not 
advantageous to the military service; and yet everybody is afraid, 
if the uniform principle is given up and personal preferment is 
introduced, that all sorts of regrettable political and social influ- 
ences will be brought to bear in the matter. Many persons see a 
difficult problem here; the young officer has almost no incentive 
to-day to special exertions. 

The government has more and various plans with regard to the 
Navy. There, too, it seems as if a general staff similar to that of 
the Army is indispensable. The steady growth of the Navy itself 
is assured, since everyone recognizes that America could not carry 
out its present policy without a strong fleet. The fleet, which 
dates virtually from 1882, won the hearts of the imperialistic pub- 
lic by its victories at Manila and Santiago; and its growth is no- 
where seriously opposed. Likewise, the Navy is introducing more 
large manoeuvres. The real difficulty lies in lack of men; it be- 
comes more and more difficult to get officers and sailors; and even 
in the question of manning a ship, the inevitable negro question 
plays a part. 

There are many open questions also in regard to the diplomatic 
and consular service. The United States maintains an uncom- 
monly large number of consuls, whose enterprise is nowhere con- 
tested, but whose preparation, tact, and personal integrity often 
leave a good deal to be desired. Their remuneration through fees 
contributes a good deal toward creating unwholesome conditions. 
The personnel of the diplomatic service is perhaps still more un- 
equal than that of the consular. Since early times the United 
States has had the discernment to send some of its most distin- 
guished men to fill important ambassadorial positions. At a time 



INTERNAL PROBLEMS 187 

when the international relations of the country were still insignifi- 
cant, such a position was often given to distinguished authors and 
poets, who represented their country at a foreign court in an intel- 
lectual and cultivated way, and contributed much to its esteem. 
This can happen no longer, and yet America has had again and 
again the good fortune to send to diplomatic positions men of un- 
common caliber; scholars like Andrew D. White, statesmen like 
John Hay, and brilliant jurists like Choate. The danger still sub- 
sists, however, that men who are merely rich, and who have done 
small services to Senators, expect in return a diplomatic appoint- 
ment, for the sake of the social glory. There is a growing desire 
to make the diplomatic service a regular career, in which a man 
progresses step by step. 

As to the postal service, the foremost problem is now that of 
free delivery in rural districts. The tremendous extent of the 
country and the thinness of its population had at first made it a 
matter of course that the farmer should fetch his own mail from 
the nearest village. The rural letter-carrier was unknown, as he 
is still unknown in small towns; every man in the village goes to 
the post-office to get his newspapers and letters. But like every 
country at the present time, the United States is trying to check 
the continual afflux of population into the cities. It is obvious 
that specially with the intellectual make-up of the American, every 
effort must be made to make rural life less monotonous and tire- 
some, and that it is necessary most of all to establish ready com- 
munication between the remote farm-houses and the rest of the 
world. The more frequently and easily the farming people re- 
ceive their letters and magazines, so much the less do they feel 
tempted to leave the soil. For this reason the very expensive 
rural delivery has spread rapidly. In the last year nine thousand 
new appointments were made in this service. Another impor- 
tant problem connected with the Post-Office is the fact that it does 
not pay for itself, because it carries printed matter at unprofitably 
low rates, and in this way has stimulated to an extraordinary 
degree the sending of catalogues and advertising matter. One 
can see how far this goes from the fact that a short time ago a fac- 
tory for medicine sent out so many copies of a booklet advertising 
its specific through the so-called "testimonials," that a railway 
train with eight large freight cars was necessary to carry them to 



i88 THE AMERICANS 

the nearest post-office. Part of the difficulty comes from the pri- 
vate ownership of the railroads, whose contracts with the gov- 
ernment for carrying the mails involve certainly no loss to the 
stockholders. 

In similar wise, all of the great departments of government have 
their problems, large or small, and the most important of these 
must be dealt with when we come to speak of the economic situa- 
tion. But there is one problem that is common to all branches of 
the government; it is the most important one which concerns in- 
ternal affairs, and although it is discussed somewhat less actively 
to-day than in former years, it continues none the less in some 
new form or other to worry the parties, the government, and more 
especially public opinion. It is the question of civil-service 
reform. 

We have touched on this question before when we spoke of the 
struggles between parties, and of the motives which bring the in- 
dividual into the party service. Some things remain to be said by 
way of completely elucidating one of the most important problems 
of American public life. To commence with, if we abstract from 
the civil service in city and state — although the question is much 
the same there — that is, if we take into account only the federal 
service — we find over a hundred thousand official appointments: 
and the question is — Shall these appointments, with their as- 
sured salaries, be distributed to adherents of the party in power, 
chiefly with reference to their services to the party, or shall these 
positions be removed from all touch with the parties and given to 
the best and ablest applicants .f* It is clear that the problem could 
easily be so exhibited that the appointment of the best and most 
capable applicant, without reference to his party, should seem to 
be absolutely and unequivocally necessary, and as if any other 
opinion could proceed only from the desire to work corruption. 
The situation is not quite so simple, however. 

In the first place, every one is aware that the highest adminis- 
trative positions are invariably places of confidence, w^here it is 
very necessary that the incumbent shall be one in thought and 
purpose with the Executive; and this is more than ever necessary 
in a democracy composed of two parties. If the majority of the 
people elects a certain President in order to carry out the convic- 
tions of one party in opposition to the other, the will of the people 



INTERNAL PROBLEMS j8g 

would be frustrated if the upper members of the governmental 
staffs were not to be imbued with the same party ideas. A Repub- 
lican President could not work together with a Democratic Secre- 
tary of State without sacrificing the efficiency of his administra- 
tion, and struggling along on such compromises as would ulti- 
mately make meaningless the existence of two organized parties. 
A Republican Secretary of State must have, however, if he is to be 
spared a good deal of friction, an assistant secretary of state with 
whom he is politically in harmony; and so it goes on down. 

But if we begin at the bottom and work up, the situation looks 
different. The book-keeper to the ministry, the small postal 
clerk, or the messenger boy in the treasury, has no opportunity to 
realize his personal convictions. He has merely his regular task 
to perform, and is not immediately concerned whether the policy 
of state is Republican or Democratic, imperialistic or anti-impe- 
rialistic. We have then to ask — Where lie the boundaries between 
those higher positions in which the private convictions of the in- 
cumbents ought properly to be with the administration, and those 
lower positions where party questions are in no way involved ? 

Opinions vary very widely as to where this boundary lies. 
Some put it rather low, and insist that the American by his whole 
political training is so thoroughly a creature of the party, that true 
harmony in state offices can be had only if the whole service from 
top to bottom is peopled with adherents of the ruling party; and 
this opinion, although it may be refuted on good grounds, is 
neither absurd nor dishonest. The population of Germany is 
divided to-day into a civil and a social-democratic party, and it 
appears to the dominant civil party by no means unnatural to 
exclude the social-democrats so far as possible from participation 
in the public service. 

It is quite possible, moreover, for each party to furnish compe- 
tent incumbents for all the leading positions; and so long as capa- 
ble men can be found who will acquit themselves well in office, 
there is of course no reason for charging the party with greed or 
spoils-gathering, as if the public funds were a pure gift, and it were 
unworthy to accept an official appointment given in recognition 
of services to the party. We have already emphasized how ex- 
tremely German conceptions differ from American on this point, 
and how the customary reiteration in Germany of the unfavour- 



igo THE AMERICANS 

able comments made by certain American reform enthusiasts, 
leads to much misunderstanding. It is well-known that Germany 
has, for instance, for the university professors a system of state ap- 
pointment, which rests wholly on personal recommendation; this 
in sharp contrast to England, where the candidates for every 
vacant chair must compete, and where no one can be called who 
does not compete; or with France, where the positions are awarded 
on the basis of an examination. 

The considerations which we have stated are not at all to be 
taken as an argument against civil-service reform, but only as an 
indication that the problem is complicated and has its pros and 
cons. In fact, the grounds for the widest possible extension of a 
civil-service independent of party are many and urgent. In the first 
place, the service itself demands it. The appointments by party 
are really appointments on the basis of recommendations and 
wishes of political leaders. The Senators, for instance, from a cer- 
tain state advise the President as to who should be appointed for 
postmasters in the most important post-offices; and the smaller 
positions are similarly filled on the recommendation of less influ- 
ential politicians. 

Therefore, it is only to a limited extent that there is any real 
estimation of the capacity and fitness of the proposed incumbent. 
Public opinion is always watchful, however, and the politician is 
generally afraid to press an appointment which he knows would be 
disapproved by public opinion, or which would later be seen to be 
absurd, would damage his own political credit, and perhaps even 
wreck his political future. 

It is equally true that the political parties have become expert 
in sifting human material and finding just the right people for the 
places; and that, moreover, the American with his extraordinary 
capacity for adaptation and organization easily finds himself at 
home in any position and fills it creditably. And yet it remains, 
that in this way the best intentioned appointer works in the dark, 
and that a technical examination would more accurately select 
the fittest man from among the various candidates. 

Most of all, by this method of appointment on the ground of 
political influence, where the petitions of the incumbent's local 
friends, commendatory letters from well-known men, and the 
thousand devices of the wire-puller play an important part, the 



INTERNAL PROBLEMS igi 

feeling of individual responsibility is always largely lost. The head 
of the department must rely on local representatives, and these 
politicians again know that they do not themselves actually make 
the appointments; and the candidate is put into office with no 
exertion on his own part — almost passively. 

It is not to be denied that in this way many an unworthy man 
has come to office. The very lowest political services have been 
rewarded with the best positions. Political candidates have had 
to promise before their election to make certain appointments to 
office which had nothing at all to do with the fitness of the ap- 
pointee; and such appointee, when actually instated, has not only 
neglected his office, but sometimes criminally misused it for embez- 
zlement and fraudulent contracts, for government deals in which 
he has had some personal advantage, or for the smuggling in of 
friends and relatives to inferior positions. Politicians have too often 
sought to exact all sorts of devious personal and political services 
from those whom they have previously recommended for office in 
order to hush them up. Through the intrigues of such men all sorts 
of unnecessary positions have been created, in order to provide 
for political friends from the public treasury; and the contest 
for these personal nominations has consumed untold time and 
strength in the legislative chambers. No one can fail to see that 
such sores will develop over and over in the political organism so 
long as the principle is recognized of making official appoint- 
ments on the basis of party allegiance. While criminal misuse of 
such a practice is the exception, and the honourable endeavour to 
pick out the best candidates and their honest performance of duty 
are the rule, nevertheless every thoughtful friend of the country's 
welfare must wish to make all such exceptions impossible. 

There is another unfavourable effect which such a system must 
have, within the party itself. A man who is put into office by poli- 
ticians, unless he is a strong man, will labour in the interests of his 
benefactors, will carry party politics into places where they do not 
belong, and be ready to let the party rob him of a certain portion 
of his salary as a contribution to the party treasury, as has been 
customary for a long time. In this way salaries have been in- 
creased in order that a considerable portion might redound to 
the party treasury, and thus the means be won for bringing the 
party victoriously through the next elections; and in this way the 



ig2 THE AMERICANS 

official has been able to assure himself as good an office, or per- 
haps a better one, in the future. The same thing happens once 
more in city politics where the funds levied on city officials have 
made a considerable share of the party's assets. There has been 
good reason, therefore, why public opinion has for a long time 
demanded, and with increasing energy, an entire change in such a 
state of things; and aside from the positions of actual confidence, 
in which in fact only men of a certain political faith could be of 
any service, it has demanded that public offices be put on a non- 
partisan basis and given out with a view solely to the efficiency of 
the appointee. 

Such a problem hardly existed during the first forty years of 
American constitutional government; officials were appointed in 
a business-like way. A man in office stayed there as long as 
he did his duties well, and the advent of a new party in the higher 
positions had very little influence on the lower ones. It was 
deemed tyranny to dismiss a competent official in order to put a 
party adherent in his position. The statistics show that at that 
time not more than forty-two changes on the average were made 
on such political grounds every year. The opposite practice first 
arose in the cities, and especially in New York, whence it spread 
to the state, where in 1818 a whole regiment of party followers was 
established in the government offices of the state by Van Buren, 
And under President Jackson the principle finally became adopted 
in the federal government. About the year 1830, it became an un- 
written law that official positions should be the spoils of victory at 
the elections and go to the favoured party. People were aware 
that there was no better way of getting party adherents to be 
industrious than to promise them positions if they would help the 
party to gain its victory. The reaction commenced at about the 
middle of the last century, closely following on a similar move- 
ment in England. 

As the power of the English Parliament grew, popular repre- 
sentatives had demanded their share in the distributing of offices, 
and an obnoxious trading in salaries had become prevalent. 
When at last the abuses became too frequent, just before the 
middle of the last century, England instituted official examina- 
tions in order to weed out the obviously unfit candidates. It was 
not really a true competition, since the candidate was still ap- 



INTERNAL PROBLEMS 193 

pointed to office by the politicians. But the examination made 
sure of a minimal amount of proper training. 

The American Congress followed this example during the fifties. 
Certain groups of minor positions were made, for which appomt- 
ment could be had only after an examination. England now 
went further on the same course, and America followed her lead. 
On both sides of the ocean the insignificant examination of the 
candidate who had backing, became a general examination for 
all who wished to apply; so that the position came to be given to 
the best candidate. The Civil-Service Commission was instituted 
by President Grant, and for thirty years its beneficent influence 
has steadily grown, and it has made great inroads on the old 
system. The regular politicians who could not endure being 
deprived of the positions which they wished to pledge to their 
campaign supporters have naturally tried time after time to stem 
the current, and with some success. In 1875 Congress discon- 
tinued the salaries which had been paid the Commissioners; then 
competitive examinations were given up, and in their stead single 
examinations instituted for candidates who had been recom- 
mended by political influence. 

But here, if anywhere, public opinion has been stronger than 
party spirit. Under President Hayes, and then under Garfield and 
Arthur, the competitive system was partly reinstated, and while 
the number of positions which were open only to those who had 
successfully passed the public examinations increased, at the same 
time the reprehensible taxation of officials for party ends was 
finally stopped. This did not prevent a certain smaller number 
of positions from retaining their partisan complexion; and the 
opinions and party creed of these incumbents continued to be 
important, so that whenever one party succeeded another, a cer- 
tain amount of change was still necessary. So there remain two 
great divisions of the public service — the political offices which the 
President fills by appointment in co-operation with the Senate, and 
the so-called "classified" offices which are given out on the basis 
of public examinations. Public opinion and the sincere sup- 
porters of civil-service reform, among whom is President Roose- 
velt himself, are working all the time for an increase in the num- 
ber of classified positions and a corresponding decrease in the 
political group. 



ig^. THE AMERICANS 

The open opponents of this movement, of whom there are many 
in both parties, are hard at work in the opposite direction, and are 
too often supported by the faint-hearted friends of the reform, 
who recognize its theoretical advantages, but have some practical 
benefit to derive by pursuing the methods which they decry. 
There is no doubt that again in the last ten years some steps have 
been taken backward, and on various pretexts many important 
positions have been withdrawn from the classified service and 
restored to Senatorial patronage. 

The actual situation is as follows. There are 114,000 non- 
classified positions, with a total salary of ^5,000,000, and 121,000 
classified positions which bring a salary of ^85,000,000^ Among 
the former, where no competition exists, over 77,000 are post- 
masterships; then there are consular, diplomatic, and other high 
positions, and a large number of places for labourers. In the 
classified service, there are 17,000 positions for officials who live 
in Washington, 5,000 of which are in the treasury. The com- 
mittees on the commission have about 400 different kinds of 
examinations to give. Last year 47,075 persons were examined 
for admission to the civil service; 21,000 of these for the govern- 
ment service, 3,000 for the customs, and 21,000 for the postal 
service. There were about 1,000 examinations more for advance- 
ments in office and exchange from one part of the service to 
another, and 439 persons were examined for service in the Philip- 
pines. Out of all these applicants 33,739 passed the examina- 
tions, and of these 11,764 obtained positions which are theirs for 
life, independent of any change which may take place at the White 
House. It is a matter of course that the security which these 
positions give of life-long employment is the highest incentive to 
faithful service and conscientious and industrious labour. 

The difference between the two services was again clearly 
brought out in the last great scandal, which greatly stirred up the 
federal administration. The Post-Office Department had closed a 
number of contracts for certain utensils from which certain officials, 
or at least their relatives, made considerable profits. Everything 
had been most discreetly hidden, and it took an investigation 
of several months to uncover the crookedness. But when every- 
thing had come out, it appeared that the officials who were seri- 
ously involved all belonged to the unclassified service, while the 



INTERNAL PROBLEMS igs 

classified service of the Post-Ofiice was found to be an admirable 
example of conscientious and faithful office-holding. Certain it 
is that such criminal misuse, even among the confidential posi- 
tions, is a rare exception; it is no less sure that the temptations are 
much greater there. A man who holds office, not because he is 
peculiarly fitted for it, but because he has been generally useful in 
politics, knowing as he does that the next time the parties change 
places his term of office will be up, will always be too ready to use 
his position for the party rather than for the country, and finally 
for himself and his pocket-book rather than for his party. 

Now, if civil-service reform is to spread or even to take no steps 
backward, public opinion must be armed for continual battle 
against party politicians. But it is an insult to the country when, 
as too often happens, some one tries to make it appear that the 
opponents of reform are consciously corrupt. The difficulty of 
the problem lies just in the fact that most honourable motives 
may be uppermost on both sides; and one has to recognize this, 
although one may be convinced that the reformer has the better 
arguments on his side. The filling of positions by party adher- 
ents, as a reward for their services, puts an extraordinary amount 
of willing labour at the service of the party. And undoubtedly 
t'ue party system is necessary in America, and demands for its ex- 
istence just such a tremendous amount of work. The non-classi- 
fied positions are to the American party politicians exactly what 
the orders and titles which he can award are to the European 
monarch; and the dyed-in-the-wool party leader would in all 
honesty be glad to throw overboard the whole "humbug" of civil- 
service reform, since he would rather see his party victorious — that 
is, his party principles acknowledged in high federal places — than 
see his country served as economically, faithfully, and ably as 
possible. In fact, the regular party politician has come to look on 
the frequent shake-up among office-holders as an ideal condition. 
Just as no President can be elected more than twice, he conceives 
it to be unsound and un-American to leave an official too long in 
any one position. 

The full significance of the problem comes out when one 
realizes that the same is true once more in the separate state, and 
again in every municipality. The states and cities have their 
classified service, appointment to which is independent of party 



ig6 THE AMERICANS 

allegiance, as of governor or mayor, and in addition to this confi- 
dential positions for which the governor and legislature or the 
mayor and city council are responsible. Municipal service has 
attracted an" increasing amount of public attention in recent years, 
owing to the extremely great abuses which it can harbour. 

Fraudulent contracts, the grant of handsome monopolies to 
street railway, gas, electric-light, telephone, and pier companies, 
the purchase of land and material for public buildings, and the 
laying out of new streets — all these things, owing to the extra- 
ordinarily rapid growth of municipalities, afford such rich oppor- 
tunities for theft, and this can be so easily hidden from the state 
attorney, that frightfully large numbers of unscrupulous people 
have been attracted into public life. And the more that purely 
municipal politics call for a kind of party service which is very 
little edifying or interesting to a gentleman in frock and silk hat, 
so much the more other kinds of men force their way into politics 
in large cities and get control of the popular vote, not in order to 
support certain principles, but to secure for themselves positions 
from the winning party, of which the salary is worth something 
and the dishonest perquisites may be "worth" a great deal more. 
Even here again the service to the city is not necessarily bad, and 
certainly not so bad as the scandal-mongering press of the opposite 
party generally represents it. Most of the office-holders are 
decent people, who are contented with the moderate salary and 
modest social honour of their positions. Nevertheless, a good 
deal that is impure does creep in, and the service would be more 
efficient if it could be made independent of the party machine. 
Public opinion is sure of this. 

Each party is naturally convinced that the greatest blame be- 
longs with the other, and in strict logic one can no more accuse 
one party of corruption than the other. The Republican party in 
a certain sense whets the general instinct for greed more than the 
Democratic, so that its opponents like to call it "the mother of 
corruption." It is a part of the Republican confession of faith, in 
consequence of its centralizing spirit, that the state cannot leave 
everything to free competition, but must itself exert a regulating 
influence; thus the Republican does not believe in free-trade, and 
he thinks it quite right for an industry or any economic enterprise 
which is going badly, or which fancies that it is not prospering 



INTERNAL PROBLEMS igy 

enough, or which for any reason at all would like to make more 
money, to apply to the state for protection, and to be favoured at 
the expense of the rest of the community. The principle of com- 
plete equality is here lost, and the spirit of preference, of favours 
for the few against the many, and of the employment of public 
credit for the advantage of the avaricious, is virtually recognized. 
And when this spirit has once spread and gone through all party 
life, there is no way of preventing a situation in which every one 
applies to the public funds for his own enrichment, and the strong- 
est industries secure monopolies and influence the legislatures in 
their favour by every means which the party has at its disposal. 

The Democrats, on the other hand, desire equal rights for all, 
and free competition between all economic enterprises; they ap- 
prove of all centrifugal and individualistic tendencies. And yet 
if the state does not exert some regulative influence, the less moral 
elements of society will misuse their freedom, and they will be freer 
in the end than the citizens who scrupulously and strictly govern 
themselves. And the spirit of unrestraint and immorality will be 
ever more in evidence. The Democratic party will be forced to 
make concessions to this idea if it desires to retain its domination 
over the masses, and any one who first begins to make concessions 
to individual crookedness is necessarily inoculated. Thus it 
happens that in the Republican party there is a tendency to in- 
troduce corruption from above, and in the Democratic party 
from below. 

If in a large town, say, the Republican party is dominant, the 
chief public enemies will be the industrial corporations, with 
their tremendous means and their watered securities; but if the 
Democratic party is uppermost, the worst enemies will be the 
liquor dealers, procurers, and gamblers. Correspondingly, in 
the former case, the honour of the city council which closes huge 
contracts with stock companies will succumb, while in the latter it 
will be the conscience of the policeman on the corner who pock- 
ets a little consideration when the bar-keeper wants to keep open 
beyond the legal hour. And since the temptation to take small 
bribes are ten thousand times more frequent than the chances for 
graft on a large scale, the total damage to public morals is about 
the same in both cases. But we must repeat once more that these 
delinquencies are after all the exception rather than the rule, and 



ig8 THE AMERICANS 

happily are for the most part expiated behind the bars of a peni- 
tentiary. 

Most of all, it must be insisted that public opinion is all the time 
following up these excrescences on party life, and that public opin- 
ion presses forward year by year at an absolutely sure pace, and 
purifies the public atmosphere. All these evil conditions are easy 
to change. When Franklin came to England he was alarmed to 
see what fearful corruptions prevailed in English official life; such 
a thing was unknown at that time in America. Now England 
has long ago wiped out the blot, and America, which fell into its 
political mire a half-century later, will soon be out again and free; 
just as it has got rid of other nuisances. Every year brings some 
advance, and the student of American conditions should not let 
himself be deceived by appearances. 

On the surface, for instance, the last mayoralty election in New 
York City would seem to indicate a downward tendency. New 
York two years previously had turned out the scandalous Tam- 
many Hall gang with Van Wyck and his brutal extortionist. Chief 
of Police Devery, by a non-partisan alliance of all decent people 
in the city. New York had elected by a handsome majority 
Seth Low, the President of Columbia University, to be its mayor, 
and thereby had instated the principle that, the best municipal 
government must use only business methods and be independent 
of political parties. Seth Low was supported by distinguished 
reformers in both parties, and was brilliantly successful in placing 
the entire city government on a distinctly higher level. The pub- 
lic schools, the general hygiene, the highways, and the police force 
were all thoroughly cleansed of impure elements and reformed 
without regard to party, on the purest and most business-like 
principle. 

And then came the day for another election. Once more the 
independent voters, including the best men in both parties, the 
intellectual leaders and the socially dominant forces of the city, 
were banded together again to save their city of three million 
inhabitants from party politics, and to insure by their co-opera- 
tion a continuance of the honest, business-like administration. 
They made Seth Low their candidate again; he was opposed by 
McClellan, the candidate of Tammany Hall, the party which 
loudly declares that "To the victors belong the spoils," and that 



INTERNAL PROBLEMS igg 

the thousands of municipal offices are to be the prey of party 
adherents. This was the candidate of the party which admitted 
that all the hopes of the worst proletariat, of prostitution and 
vagabondage, depended on its success; the candidate of a party 
which declared that it would everywhere rekindle the "red light,'* 
that it would not enforce the unpopular temperance laws, and 
that it would leave the city "wide open." On the day of election 
251,000 votes were cast for Mayor Low, but 313,000 for Colonel 
McClellan. 

Now, does this really indicate that the majority of the city of 
New York consists of gamblers, extortioners, and criminals ? One 
who read the Republican campaign literature issued before the 
election might suppose so. After reading on every street corner and 
fence and on giant banners the carnpaign cry, "Vote for Low and 
keep the grafters out," one might think that 300,000 pick-pockets 
had united to force out a clean administration and to place cor- 
ruption on the throne. But on looking more closely at the situ- 
ation one must see that no such thing was in question. Seth Low 
had furnished a clean administration, yet not a perfect one, and his 
mistakes had so seriously disaffected many citizens that they would 
rather endure the corruption of Tammany Hall than the brusque- 
ness and various aggravations which threatened from his side. 

Of these grievances, a typical one was the limitation of German 
instruction in the public schools. From the pedagogical point of 
view, this was not wholly wrong; and leading educationists, even 
German ones, had recommended the step. But at the same time 
the great German population was bitterly'offended, and the whole 
discussions of the school board had angered the German citizens 
enough to cool off considerably their enthusiasm for reform. 
Then on top of this. Low's administration had rigorously enforced 
certain laws of Sunday observance which the German part of the 
population cordially hated. Here, too. Mayor Low was undoubt- 
edly right; he was enforcing the law; but when two years pre- 
viously he had wished to win over the German vote, he had prom- 
ised more than he could fulfill. But, most of all, Seth Low was 
socially an aristocrat, who had no common feeling with the masses; 
and whenever he spoke in popular assemblies he displayed no 
magnetism. Every one felt too keenly that he looked down on 
them from his exalted social height. 



200 THE AMERICANS 

Against him were the Tammany people, of whom at least one 
thing must be said: they know the people and their needs. They 
have grown up among the people. In contrast to many a Repub- 
lican upstart who, according to the European fashion, is servile 
to his superiors and harsh with his inferiors, these Tammany men 
are harsh to their superiors — that is, they shake the nerves of the 
more refined — but are servile before the masses and comply with 
every wish. And most of all, they are really the friends of the 
populace, sincerely true and helpful to it. Moreover, just these 
great masses have more to suffer under a good administration 
than under the corrupt government which lets every one do as he 
likes. These people do not notice that the strict, hygienic admin- 
istration reduced the death-rate and the list of casualties, and im- 
proved the public schools; but they notice when for such im- 
provements they have to pay a cent more in taxation, or have to 
put safer staircases or fire-escapes on their houses, or to abandon 
tottering structures, or if they are not allowed to beg without a 
permit, or are forbidden to throw refuse in the streets. In short, 
these people notice a slight expense or an insignificant prohibi- 
tion, and do not see that in the end they are greatly benefited. 
And so, when the day of reckoning comes, when the election cam- 
paigns are fought, in which distinguished reformers deliver schol- 
arly addresses on the advantages of a non-partisan administration 
while the candidates of the people excite them with promises that 
they shall be free from all these oppressive burdens — it is no 
wonder that Seth Low is not returned to the City Hall, and that 
McClellan, who by the way is a highly educated and cultured 
politician, is entrusted with the city government. 

Such an outcome is not a triumph for vice and dishonour. In 
two years the reformers will probably conquer again, since every 
administration makes its enemies and so excites opposition. But 
there can be no doubt that even on this occasion public opinion, 
with its desire to reform, has triumphed, although the official 
friends of reform were outdone; such a man as the former Chief 
of Police, Devery, will be impossible in the future. Public opinion 
sees to it that when the two parties stand in opposition the fight 
is fought each successive time on a higher level. And Tammany 
of to-day as compared with the Tammany of years gone by is the 
best evidence for the victory of public opinion and the reformers. 



CHAPTER TEN 

External Political Problems 

THE attitude of America in international affairs can hardly be 
referred to any one special trait of mind. If one were to seek 
a simple formula, one would have to recognize in it a certain 
antithesis of mood; an opposition which one encounters in the 
American people under the most varied circumstances, and which 
perhaps depends on the fact that it is a people which has devel- 
oped an entirely new culture, although on the basis of the high 
culture of the Old World. When we come to speak of American 
intellectual life we shall have again to consider this extraordinary 
combination of traits. The people are youthful and yet mature; 
they are fresher and more spontaneous than those of other mature 
nations, and wiser and more mature than those of other youthful 
nations; and thus it is that in the attitude of the Americans toward 
foreign affairs the love of peace and the delight in war combine to 
make a contrast which has rarely been seen. Doubtless there is an 
apparent contradiction here, but this contradiction is the historical 
mark of the national American temperament; and it is not to be 
supposed that the contradiction is solved by ascribing these di- 
verse opinions to diverse elements in the population, by saying, 
for instance, that one group of citizens is more warlike, another 
more peaceable; that perhaps the love of hostile interference 
springs from the easily excited masses, while the love of peace is 
to be sought in their more thoughtful leaders, or that perhaps, on 
the other hand, the masses are peaceably industrious while their 
leaders draw them into war. 

Such is not at all the case. There is not any such contrast 
between the masses and the classes; personal differences of opin- 
ion there are and some individuals are more volatile than others, 
but the craze for expansion in its newest form finds strong sup- 



202 THE AMERICANS 

porters and violent opponents in all parties and occupations. 
The most characteristic feature is, that just those who show the 
love for war most energetically are none the less concerned, and 
most earnestly so, for the advance of peace. President Roosevelt 
is the most striking example of the profound combination of these 
opposing tendencies in one human breast. 

Every movement toward peace, in fact every international 
attempt toward doing away with the horrors of war, has found in 
the New World the most jealous and enthusiastic supporters; 
whenever two nations have come to blows the sympathies of the 
Americans have always been on the side of the weaker nation, no 
matter which seemed to be the side of justice. And the mere 
circumstance that two nations have gone to war puts the stronger 
power in a bad light in the eyes of America. 

The nation has grown strong by peaceful industry; its greatest 
strength has lain in trade and the arts, its best population has 
come across the ocean in order to escape the military burdens of 
Europe; and the policy of the founders of the Republic, now be- 
come a tradition, was always to hold aloof from any dealings 
with the quarrelsome continent of Europe. During the short time 
of its existence, the United States has settled forty-nine inter- 
national disputes in a peaceable court of arbitration, and often- 
times these have been in extemely important matters; and 
America has been a party in over half of the disputes which have 
been settled before a court of arbitration in recent times. Amer- 
ica was an important participant in the founding of the Peace 
Tribunal at The Hague. When negotiations for that tribunal 
threatened to be frustrated by the opposing nations of Europe, 
the American government sent its representatives to the very 
centre of the opposition, and won a victory for the side of peace. 

It is almost a matter of course that it is the munificent gift of 
an American which has erected a palace at The Hague for this 
international Peace Tribunal. While the European nations are 
groaning under the burden of their standing armies, and are 
weakened by wars over religious matters or the succession of 
dynasties, happy America knows nothing of this; her pride is the 
freedom of her citizens, her battles are fought out at the ballot- 
box. The disputes between sects and royal houses are unknown 
in the New World; its only neighbours are two oceans on the 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 203 

east and west, and on the north and south good friends. No end 
of progress remains to be made, but everything works together 
under the protection of the American Constitution to produce a 
splendid home in the New World for peace. America is the one 
world power which makes for peace; and it will only depend on 
the future growth of this nation, which has been ordained to be- 
come such an example, whether the idea of peace will finally pre- 
vail throughout the world over the immoral settlement of dis- 
putes by mere force of arms. 

All this is not merely the programme of a party or of a group of 
people, but the confession of faith of every American. The 
American finds no problem here, since none would dispute the 
contention. It has all impressed itself so fully on the conscious- 
ness of the American people that it gives to the whole nation a feel- 
ing of moral superiority. Nor is this merely the pathos uttered 
in moral orations; it is the conviction with which every child 
grows up and with which every farmer goes to his plough, every 
artisan and merchant to his machine and desk, and the President 
to his executive chamber. And this conviction is so admirable 
that it has always been contagious, and all Europe has become 
quite accustomed to considering the Republic across the water as 
the firmest partisan of peace. The Republic has in fact been this, 
is now, and always will be so; while the riddle is — how it can be 
such a friend of peace when it was conceived in war, has settled 
its most serious problems by war, has gone to war again and 
again, has almost played with declarations of war, is at war to- 
day, and presumably will be at war many times again. 

The Spanish war has shown clearly to European onlookers the 
other side of the shield, and many have at once concluded that 
the boasted American love of peace has been from the first a grand 
hypocrisy, that at least under McKinley's administration an 
entirely new spirit had suddenly seized the New World. But 
McKinley's predecessor, Cleveland, in the disputes arising be- 
tween England and Venezuela, had waved the sabre until it hissed 
so loudly that it was not at all due to the American love of peace 
but rather to England's preoccupation in the Transvaal which 
prevented the President's message and the national love of inter- 
ference from stirring up a war. And it is now several years since 
the successor of McKinley moved into the White House, yet 



204. THE AMERICANS 

McKinley's war is still going on; for although a war has never 
been officially declared in the Philippines, war seems the only 
correct name for the condition which there prevails. 

This Philippine question is a real political problem. That 
America is to serve the interests of peace is certain; every one 
is agreed on that; and the great majority of the people was 
also enthusiastically in favour of ending the Spanish misrule in 
Cuba. But the same is not true of the war in the Philippines, and 
becomes less true every day. The enthusiasts have subsided, 
the masses have become indifferent, while the politicians carry on 
the discussion; and since it is a question of motives which cannot 
be put aside for the present, and which at any time may so excite 
the nation as to become the centre of political discussion, it is well 
worth while to look more fully into these points. 

The imperialists say that the events in the Pacific Ocean have 
followed exactly the traditions of the land; that expansion has 
always been a fundamental instinct of the nation; that its whole 
development shows that from the day when the Union was 
founded it commenced to increase its territory. The tremen- 
dous expansion gained by the purchase of Louisiana was followed 
by the annexation of Florida, and still later by that of the great 
tract called Texas. In the war with Mexico the region between 
Texas and California was acquired. Alaska was next gathered in. 
The narrow strip originally occupied by the Thirteen States be- 
came a huge country within a century, and thus the nation sim- 
ply remains true to its traditions in stretching out over the ocean 
and carrying the Stars and Stripes toward Asia. 

To this the anti-imperialists reply, on the contrary, that the 
United States is repudiating an honourable history and tram- 
pling down that which has been sacred for centuries. For if there 
has been any underlying principle at all to guide the United 
States in moments of perplexity, it has been a firm faith in the 
rights of people to govern themselves. The United States has 
never exchanged or acquired a foot of land without the consent 
of those who dwelt thereon. Where such lands have held noth- 
ing but the scattered dwellings of isolated colonists there existed 
no national consent to be consulted, and where there were no 
people no national self-government could come in question; 
neither Louisiana, California, nor Alaska was settled by a real 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 205 

nation, and Texas had of itself decided to become independent 
of Mexico. But the PhiUppines are inhabited by ten million 
people, with striking national traits and an organized will; and 
the United States, for the first time in history, now misuses its 
strength by oppressing another nation and forcing its own will 
on a prostrate people. 

Now the imperialists reply they do not mean at all to dispute 
the right of self-gov.ernment, a principle on which the greatness 
of our nation is founded. But it is a narrow and absurd concep- 
tion of self-government which regards every people, however 
backward and unruly, capable thereof, and divinely privileged to 
misrule itself. The right of self-government must be deserved; 
it is the highest possession of civilized nations, and they have 
earned it by labour and self-discipline. The Americans derive 
their right to govern themselves from the toil of thirty genera- 
tions. The Filipinos have still to be educated up to such a 
plane. To this the anti-imperialists enquire. Is that to be called 
education which subdues, like rebels, a people desirous of free- 
dom ? Are you helping those people by sending soldiers to assert 
your sovereignty ? 

And the imperialists reply again that we have sufficiently 
shown, in the case of Cuba, how seriously we take our moral obli- 
gations toward weaker peoples. When we had done away by 
force of arms with all Spanish domination in America, and had 
Cuba quite in our power, all Europe was convinced that we 
should never relax our hold, and that the war would result simply 
in a mere annexation .of the rich island; in short, that we should 
pursue a typical European policy. But we have shown the world 
that America does not send her sons to battle merely for aggran- 
dizement, but only in a moral cause; just as we demanded of the 
conquered Spaniards no indemnity, so we have made a general 
sacrifice for Cuba. We have laboured tirelessly for the hygiene 
and the education of the island, have strengthened its trade and 
awakened to new life the country which had been desolated by 
Spanish misrule, and, having finished the work, we have restored 
to Cuba her freedom and her right of self-government; and we 
recognize that we owe a similar duty to the Philippines. We have 
not sought to obtain those islands. At the outset of the war no 
American foresaw that the island kingdom in the tropics, ten 



2o6 THE AMERICANS 

thousand miles away, would fall into our hands; but when the 
chain of events brought it about, we could not escape the call of 
duty. Were we to leave the discontented Philippine population 
once more to the cruelty of their Spanish masters, or were we to 
displace the Spaniards and then leave the wild race of the islands 
to their own anarchy, and thus invoke such internal hostilities as 
would again wipe out all the beginnings which had been made 
toward culture ? Was it not rather our duty to protect those who 
turned to us, against the vengeance of their enemies, and before 
all else to establish order and quietude ? The anti-imperialists 
retort — the quietude of a grave-yard. If America's policy had 
been truly unselfish, it should have made every preparation for 
dealing with the Philippines as it had dealt with Cuba; instead of 
fighting with the Filipinos we should at once have co-operated 
with Aguinaldo and sent over a civil instead of a military regi- 
ment. Nor is the world deceived into supposing that our boasted 
civil rule in the Philippines is anything more than a name, used in 
order somewhat to pacify the sentimentalists of the New England 
States; while in reality our rule is a military one, and the small 
success of a few well-meaning civil officials merely distracts the 
world's attention from the constant outbreaks of war. We have 
not worked from the point of view of the Philippines, but from that 
of the United States. 

The imperialists answer that it is no disgrace to have been patri- 
otic to our Fatherland; the national honour requires us, indeed, to 
remain for the present in the Philippines, and not to take down the 
flag which we have hoisted so triumphantly. We should not flee 
before a few disafi^ected races living in those islands. Then the 
other side replies, you have not protected the honour of your na- 
tion, but you have worked its disgrace. The honour of America 
has been the moral status of its army; it was America's boast that 
its army had never lost the respect of an enemy, and that it had 
held strictly aloof from every unnecessary cruelty. But America 
has learned a diflPerent lesson in the Philippines, and such a one as 
all thoughtful persons have foreseen; for when a nation accustomed 
to a temperate climate goes to the tropics to war with wild races 
which have grown up in cruelty and the love of revenge, it neces- 
sarily forgets its moral standards, and gives free rein to the low- 
est and worst that is in it. The American forces have learned 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 207 

there, to their disgrace, to conquer by deception and trickery; 
to be cruel and revengeful, and so return torture for torture. 

Then the imperiahsts say that this is not a question of the army 
which was landed in the tropical islands, but of the whole Ameri- 
can people, which undertook new duties and responsibilities 
for the islands, and wished to try, not only its military, but also 
its political, economic, and social powers along new lines. A 
people also must grow and have its higher aspirations. The 
youthful period of the American nation is over; manhood has 
arrived, when new and dangerous responsibilities have to be 
assumed. To this the anti-imperialists reply, that a nation 
is surely not growing morally when it gives up the principles 
which have always been its sole moral strength. If it gives up 
believing in the freedom of every nation and carries on a war 
of subjugation, it has renounced all moral development, and 
instead of growing it begins internally to decay. But this, the 
imperialists say, is absurd — since, outwardly, at least, we are 
steadily growing; our reputation before other nations is increas- 
ing with our military development; we have become a powerful 
factor in the powers of the world, and our Philippine policy shows 
that our navy can conquer even in remote parts of the earth, 
and that in the future America will be a power to reckon with 
everywhere. But, on the contrary, say the others, our nation 
held a strong position so long as, in accordance with the Monroe 
Doctrine, it was able to keep any European power from getting 
a foothold on the American continents, and so long as we made 
the right of self-government a fundamental principle of our 
international politics. But the instant we adopted a policy of 
conquest and assumed the right to subjugate inferior peoples 
because our armies were the stronger, the Monroe Doctrine be- 
came at once and for the first time an empty phrase, if not a 
piece of arrogance. We are no better than the next nation; we 
have no right to prevent others from acting like ourselves, and 
we have sacrificed our strong position, and shall be led from 
war to war, and the fortunes of war are always uncertain. 

The imperialists reply somewhat more temperately: — Ah, but 
the new islands will contribute very much to our trade. Their 
possession means the beginning of a commercial policy which will 
put the whole Pacific Ocean at the disposal of the American 



2o8 THE AMERICANS 

merchant. Who can foresee what tremendous developments 
may come from availing ourselves of regions lying so advan- 
tageously ? When Congress in 1803 started to buy the great 
Province of Louisiana from France, there were also narrow-minded 
protests. At that time, too, anti-imperialists and fanatics be- 
came excited, and said that it was money thrown away; the 
land would never be populated. While to-day, a hundred years 
later, the world prepares to celebrate the anniversary of the 
purchase of Louisiana by a magnificent exposition at St. Louis — 
a transaction which has meant for the country a tremendous 
gain in wealth and culture. America is destined to be the mis- 
tress of the Pacific Ocean, and as soon as the canal is built across 
the isthmus the economic importance of the Philippines will 
appear more clearly every day. The anti-imperialists deny 
this. The financial statement of the entire war with Spain to 
the present moment shows that ^600,000,000 have been wasted 
and ten thousand young men sacrificed without any advantage 
being so much as in sight. Whereto the imperialists reply: — 
There are other advantages. War is a training. The best thing 
which the nation can win is not riches, but strength; and in the 
very prosperity of America the weakening eflPect of luxury is 
greatly to be feared. The nerves of the nation are steeled in the 
school of war, and its muscles hardened. But the other side 
says that our civilization requires thousands of heroic deeds of 
the most diverse kinds, more than it needs those of the field of 
battle; and that the American doctrine of peace is much better 
adapted to strengthen the moral courage of the nation and to 
stimulate it than the modern training of war, which, in the end, 
is only a question of expenditure and science. What we chiefly 
need is serious and moral republican virtue. The incitements 
toward acquisition and the spirit of war, on the other hand, 
destroy the spirit of our democracy, and breed un-American, 
autocratic ambitions. War strengthens the blind faith of the 
leaders in their own dictatorial superiority, and so annihilates the 
feeling of independence and responsibility in the individual; and 
this is just the way for the nation to lose its moral and political 
integrity. The true patriotism which our youth ought to learn 
is not found in noisy jingoism, but in the silent fidelity to the 
Declaration of Independence of our fathers. 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 2og 

Thus the opinions are waged against one another, and so they 
will continue to be. We must emphasize merely again and 
again that that majority which to-day is on the side of the im- 
perialists believes at the same time enthusiastically in the inter- 
national movement for peace, and quite disinterestedly favours, 
as far as possible, the idea of the peace tribunal. Most of all, the 
treatment of Cuba certifies to the honourable and peaceful ten- 
dencies of the dominant party. That which was done under 
Wood's administration for the hygiene of a country which had 
always been stricken with yellow fever, for the school and judicial 
systems of that unfortunate people, is remarkable; and the read- 
iness with which the new republic was afterward recognized, 
and with which, finally, by special treaties extensive tariff re- 
ductions were made to a people really dependent on trade with 
America, makes one of the most honourable pages in American 
history. And all this happened through the initiative of these 
same men whose Philippine policy has been styled in the Senate 
Napoleonic. Thus the fact remains that there is an almost 
inexplicable mixture in the American nature of justice and covet- 
iveness, conscience and indifference, love of peace and love of war. 

The latest phase in expansion has been toward the south. 
America has assumed control of Panama. Constitutionally, the 
case is somewhat different here. Panama belonged to the 
Republic of Colombia, and when the government of Colombia, 
which conducts itself for the most part like the king and his ad- 
visers in a comic opera, tried to extort more money than was 
thought just from Washington before it would sign the treaty 
giving the United States a right to build a canal through Panama, 
and at first pretended to decline the treaty altogether, a revolution 
broke out in the part of the country which was chiefly affected. 
Panama declared itself an independent state, and the United 
States recognized its claim to independence, and concluded the 
canal treaty, not with Colombia, but with the upstart govern- 
ment of Panama. This was really part and parcel of the gen- 
eral imperialistic movement. We need not ask whether the 
American government encouraged Panama to secede; it certainly 
did nothing of the sort officially, although it is perfectly certain 
that the handful of people in Panama would not have had the 
slightest chance of escaping unpunished by Colombia if it had 



210 THE AMERICANS 

not been for American protection; indeed, it seemed to feel sure 
beforehand that the United States would keep Colombia at 
bay. And in fact, the baby republic was recognized with all 
the speed of telegraph and cable, and the treaty was signed before 
Panama had become quite aware of its own independence; while 
at the same time Colombia's endeavour to bring the rebellious 
district into line was suppressed with all the authority of her 
mighty neighbour. 

It is not to be denied that this transaction called into play new 
principles of international politics; nor can it be excused on the 
ground that new governments have been quickly recognized 
before. Never before had the United States declared a rebellion 
successful so long as the old government still stood, and the 
new one was able to hold out only by virtue of the interference 
of the United States itself. It is to be admitted that this was 
an imperialistic innovation, as was the subjugation of the Fili- 
pinos. But we should not be so narrow as to condemn a 
principle because it is new. All past history makes the expansion 
of American influence necessary; the same forces which make 
a state great continue to work through its later history. America 
must keep on in its extension, and if the methods by which the 
present nations grow are necessarily different from those by 
which the little Union was able to stretch out into uninhabited 
regions a hundred years ago, then, of course, the expansion of 
the twentieth century must take on other forms than it had in 
the nineteenth. But expansion itself cannot stop, nor can it be 
altered by mere citations from the Declaration of Independence, 
or pointings to the petty traditions of provincial days. The 
fight which the anti-imperialists are waging is thoroughly justified 
in so far as it is a fight against certain outgrowths of such ex- 
pansion which have appeared in the Philippines, and most of all 
when it is against the loss to the Republic, through expansion, of its 
moral principles and of its finer and deeper feelings through 
the intoxication of power. But the fight is hopeless if it is waged 
against expansion itself. The course of the United States is 
marked out. 

It requires no special gift of prophecy to point out that the 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 211 

next expansion will be toward the north. Just as the relations in 
Panama were fairly obvious a half year before the catastrophe 
came, the suspicion cannot be now put by that at a time not far 
hence the Stars and Stripes will wave in the northwestern part of 
Canada, and that there too the United States will be unwilling 
to lower its flag. 

A newspaper is published in Boston which announces every 
day, at the top of the page, in bold type, that it is the first duty 
of the United States to annex Canada. On the other hand, one 
hears the opinion that nothing could be worse for the United 
States than to receive this immense, thinly populated territory 
even as a gift. There are the same differences of opinion on the 
other side of the boundary; some say that the Canadians are glad 
to be free from the problems which face the United States, from 
its municipal politics, its boss rule in political parties, and from 
the negro and Philippine questions, and that Canadian fidelity 
to the English Crown is not to be doubted for a moment. While 
others admit quite openly that to be annexed to the United States is 
the only natural thing that can happen to Canada. The im- 
mediate future will probably see some sort of compromise. It 
is wholly unlikely that the eastern part of Canada, in view of all 
its traditions, will prove untrue to its mother country; whereas 
the western part of Canada is under somewhat different eco- 
nomic conditions; it has so different a history, and is to-day so 
much more closely related to the United States than to Eng- 
land that the political separation will hardly continue very long. 
The thousands who have gone from the United States across 
the Canadian frontier in order to settle the unpeopled North- 
west will, in the not distant future, give rise to some occasion 
in which economic and political logic will decree a transfer of the 
allegiance of Western Canada, with the exception of a narrow 
strip of land along the Pacific Coast. The area of the United 
States would then include a new region of about 250 million acres of 
wheat lands, of which to-day hardly two millions are in cultiva- 
tion. 

The Canadian problem, of course, arose neither to-day nor 
yesterday. The first permanent colony in Canada was a French 
colony, begun in the year 1604. Frenchmen founded Quebec in 
the year 1608, and French settlements developed along the St. 



212 THE AMERICANS 

Lawrence River. In the year 1759 General Wolfe conquered 
Quebec for the English, and in the following year the whole 
of Canada fell into their power. English and Scotch immigrants 
settled more and more numerously in Upper Canada. The 
country was divided in 1791 in two provinces, which were later 
called Ontario and Quebec; and in 1867, by an act of the British 
Parliament, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia 
were made into one country. A short time thereafter the govern- 
ment of the new country bought the possessions of the Hudson 
Bay Company, and soon afterward the large western region called 
Manitoba was organized as a distinct province. In 1871 British 
Columbia was taken in, and in the eighties this extensive 
western land was divided into four provinces. During this 
time there were all sorts of interruptions, wars with the Indians, 
and disputes over boundaries; but there has never been open 
warfare between Canada and the United States. The many 
controversies that have arisen have been settled by treaty, and 
a court of arbitration met even recently in London to settle a 
dispute about boundaries which for many years had occasioned 
much feeling. It was a question whether the boundary of the 
Northwest should lie so as to leave to Canada a way to the coast 
without crossing United States territory. The boundaries were 
defined by the treaties as lying a certain distance from the coast; 
was this coast meant to be mainland, or was it coastline marked 
out by the olT-lying groups of islands .? This was a question of 
great economic importance for a part of Canada. The court 
decided in favour of the United States, but the decision does not 
belong on one of the most honourable pages of American history. 
It had been agreed that both England and the United States 
should appoint distinguished jurists to the court of arbitration; 
and this the English did, while the United States sent prejudiced 
politicians. This has created some embitterment in Canada, and 
the mood is not to-day entirely friendly, although this will doubt- 
less give way in view of the great economic development which 
works toward union with the United States. 

Such a union would be hindered very much more by the 
friendly relations existing between the United States and Eng- 
land. At the time when the family quarrel between mother and 
daughter countries had made an open breach, it seemed almost 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 213 

certain that America would take the first good opportunity of 
robbing England of her Canadian possessions. Even before the 
early colonies decided on revolution, they tried to draw the 
northern provinces into their train. And when the new Union 
was formed, it seemed a most natural thing for all English speak- 
ing inhabitants of the American Continent to participate therein. 
It was no friendliness toward England that diverted the ex- 
pansion of the young country toward the south rather than 
toward the north. It was rather the influence of the Southern 
States of the Federation which encouraged the expansion toward 
the south, because in that way their adjacent territory was in- 
creased, and therewith the number of the slave states represented 
in Congress; and the institution of slavery was thereby better 
protected from Northern interference. England was the he- 
reditary foe of the country for an entire century, and every school 
boy learned from his history book to hate England and to desire 
revenge. But this has been wholly changed in recent years 
by the sympathy which John Bull showed during the Spanish 
war, and by his far-seeing magnanimity shown on a hundred 
occasions. There are already preparations making for a special 
court of arbitration to sit on all Anglo-American disputes, and 
the mood of the American people is certainly inclined to avoid 
everything that would unnecessarily ofi^end England. American 
politicians would thus hesitate very long before attempting so 
bold a step as the annexation of Canada; and thus it is that the 
Canadian problem gets into the programme of neither party. 
Another consideration which perhaps makes a difference is 
that no party is quite sure which side would be the gainer; whether 
among the millions of people in the Canadian West there would 
be found to be more Republicans or Democrats. Therefore, 
Canada is not now an issue between the parties. Nevertheless, 
the problem grows more and more important in public opinion, 
and however much Congress may be concerned to avoid a war 
with England, and determined never deliberately to bring about 
any disloyalty in Canada, we may be certain that once the Ameri- 
can farmers and gold miners in Northwestern Canada have set 
the pro-American ball rolling, then the general mood will speedily 
change and the friendly resolutions toward England which will 
be proposed by Senators will sound very feeble. 



214- THE AMERICANS 

The most natural desire, which seems to be wide-spread, is 
for reciprocity with Canada. Both countries are aware that 
they are each other's best purchasers, and yet they put difficulties 
in the way of importing each other's products. American industry 
has already invested more than ;^ 100,000,000 for branch facto- 
ries in Canada, in order to avoid duties; and the industry of 
New England would doubtless be much benefited if Canadian 
coal might be delivered duty-free along the Atlantic coast; never- 
theless, the chief disadvantages in the present arrangements fall 
to Canada. A treaty was concluded in 1854 which guaranteed 
free entrance to the markets of the United States for all Canadian 
natural products, and during the twelve years in which the treaty 
was in force, Canadian exports increased fourfold. Then the 
American protective tariff was restored; and while, for example, 
the agricultural products which Canada sold to the United States 
in 1866 amounted to more than $25,000,000, they had decreased 
by the beginning of the twentieth century to $7,367,000; and all 
Canadian exports to the United States, with the exception of 
coin and precious metals, in spite of the tremendous growth of 
both countries, had increased at the same time only 5 per cent. 
Canada, on the other hand, contented herself with modest duties, 
so that the commerce of the United States with Canada has in- 
creased from $28,000,000 in the year 1866 to $117,000,000 in the 
year 1900. The necessary result of this policy of exclusion on the 
part of the United States has necessarily been closer economic 
relations between Canada and England. The Canadian ex- 
ports to Great Britain have increased steadily, and the bold plans 
of those who are to-day agitating a tariff union for all Great 
Britian would, of course, specially benefit Canadian commerce. 

But the United States knows this, and does not fail to think 
on the future. The agitation for new commercial treaties with 
Canada does not spring from the supporters of free-trade, but 
from some most conservative protectionists, and may be ascribed 
even to McKinley and Dingley; and this agitation is steadily 
growing. On the other hand, Canada is by no means unanimous- 
ly enthusiastic for the universal British reciprocity alliance. The 
industrial sections of Eastern Canada see things with different 
eyes from the agrarians of Western Canada, and opinions are just 
as diverse as they are in England. The economic needs of the 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 215 

East and West are so fundamentally different, and since the West 
so greatly needs reciprocity, it is coming more and more to look 
for a solution of this problem by seeking, through a union of the 
West with the United States, all that which England cannot offer. 
The government of Canada, which comprises remarkably effective 
and intelligent men, is aiming to nip the incipient disaffection of 
the West in the bud, by means of its railroad policy. Railroad 
lines connect to-day the western portion of Canada much more 
closely with the eastern portion than with the northern parts of 
the United States. 

The economic possibilities of Western Canada are enormous, 
and would suffice for a population of a hundred million. The 
supply of lumber exceeds that of the United States. Its gold 
regions are more extensive, its coal and iron supplies are in- 
exhaustible, its nickel mines the richest in the world; it has twice 
the supply of fish of the United States, and its arable lands could 
feed the population of the United States and Europe together. 
Everything depends on making the most of these possibilities, 
and the Canadian of the West looks with natural envy on the 
huge progress which the entirely similar regions of the United 
States are making, and is moved to reflect how different things 
would be with him if only the boundary lines could be altered. 

More than anything else, however, the Westerner feels that a 
spirit of enterprise, industrial energy, and independent force 
is needed to exploit these enormous natural resources, such 
as the inhabitants of a dependent colony can never have. 
Even when a colony like Canada possesses a certain inde- 
pendence in the administration of its own affairs, it is still 
only the appearance and not the fact of self-government. One 
sees clearly how colourless and dull the intellectual life of Canada 
is, and how in comparison with the very different life of Eng- 
land on the one hand, and of the United States on the other, 
the colonial spirit saps and undermines the spirit of initiative. 
The people do not suffer under such a rule; they do not 
feel the political lack of fresh air, but they take on a subdued 
and listless way of life, trying to adapt themselves to an alien 
political scheme, and not having the courage to speak out boldly. 
This depression is evinced in all their doings; and this is not the 
spirit which will develop the resources of Western Canada. But 



2i6 THE AMERICANS 

this infinite, new country attracts to its pioneer labours fresh ener- 
gies which are found south of the Canadian Hne and across the 
ocean. The Scotch, Germans, Swedes, and especially Americans 
emigrate thither in great numbers. The farmers in the western 
United States are to-day very glad to sell their small holdings, 
in order to purchase broad tracts of new, fresh ground in Canada, 
where there is still no lack of room. They will be the leaders 
in this new development of the West. And while they bring with 
them their love of work and enterprise, they are of course 
without sympathy with Canadian traditions; nor do they feel 
any patriotism toward the country: their firmest convictions 
point toward such political freedom as the United States offers. 
Whether the tariff schemes of England will be able to win back 
some advantages for Canada, only the future can say. It is more 
likely that inasmuch as the Philippine agitation has extended 
the influence of the United States into the tropics, the climatic 
equilibrium vsnll be restored by another extension into the Cana- 
dian Northwest. 



The relations of the United States to Cuba and to the Phil- 
ippines, to Panama and to Canada, have been regulated by the 
immediate needs of the country without bringing into special 
prominence any general principles. Economic interest and 
general ethics have so far sufficed, and only here and there has 
mention been made of the fundamental doctrines contained in the 
Declaration of Independence. The case of South America is 
quite different; the policy of the United States toward South 
America is dictated to-day neither by economic interests nor 
moral principles; in fact, it is a mockery of morals and a great 
prejudice to American industry. The sole source of this policy 
is an abstract political doctrine, which a long time ago was 
both economically and morally necessary, but is to-day entirely 
without value; this is the Monroe Doctrine. The observance of 
this famous doctrine is one of the most interesting instances 
of the survival of an outlived political principle, and the blind 
way in which this prejudice is still favoured by the masses, so that 
even the leading politicians would not dare, at the present time, 
to defend the real interests of the country by opposing this doc- 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS ' 2iy 

trine, shows clearly how democracy favours rule of thumb, and 
how the American people is in its thought conservative to the 
last degree. The Monroe Doctrine has done the United States 
good service, and redounded to both its profit and its honour. 
And so no one ventures to disturb it, although it has long ceased 
to bring anything except disadvantage. Some of the best people 
know this; but where the people rule it is as true as where a 
monarch rules, that the misfortune of rulers is not to wish to hear 
the truth. 

The blind folly of the Americans in holding tenaciously to 
the antiquated Monroe Doctrine is surpassed only by the mad- 
ness of those Europeans who wish to take up arms against that 
doctrine. All the declarations of the Old World to the effect that 
the Monroe Doctrine is an unheard of piece of arrogance, and that 
the Americans have no right to assert themselves in such a way, 
and that it is high time forcibly to call their right in question, are 
historically short-sighted as well as dangerous. They are un- 
historical, because there really was a time when this doctrine 
was necessary to the existence of the United States, and when, 
therefore, the country had a right to assert such doctrine; and 
now that it has been silently respected for a hundred years, any 
protest against it comes too late. Opposition to the doctrine 
from the side of Europe would be foolish, because no European 
country has any really vital reason for calling it in question, and 
there would be a very lively war indeed if Europe were to try 
to overstep the Monroe Doctrine as long as the great mass of 
the American people still hold it sacred. The Monroe Doctrine 
must and will succumb, but it will only be through the con- 
victions of the Americans, never because some European nation 
threatens to batter down the wall. The logic of events is, after 
all, stronger than the mere inertia of inherited doctrines. The 
hour seems near when the error and folly of the Monroe Doctrine 
are about to be felt in wider circles than ever before. The opposite 
side is already ably supported in addresses and essays. Soon 
the opposition will reach the newspapers, which are to-day, of 
course, still unanimous on the popular side; and whenever a 
wholesome movement commences among the American people 
it generally spreads with irresistible speed. We have seen how 
rapidly the imperialistic idea took hold on the masses, and the 



2i8 THE AMERICANS 

repudiation of the theory of Monroe will follow quite as rapidly; 
since the nation cannot, for the sake of a mere whim, perma- 
nently forget its best interests. It is only a question of overcoming 
the inertia of long custom. 

The spirit of the Monroe Doctrine was abroad long before 
the time of Monroe. It was agreed, from the earliest days of 
the federal government, that the new nation should keep itself 
clear of all political entanglement with Europe, that it would not 
mix in with the destinies of European peoples, and that it would 
expect of those peoples that they should not spread the boundaries 
of their possessions over to the American continents. When 
President Washington, in 1796, took his farewell of the nation, he 
recommended an extension of commercial relations with Europe, 
but entire aloofness from their political affairs. "The nations 
of Europe," he said, "have important problems which do not 
concern us as a free people. The causes of their frequent mis 
understandings lie far outside of our province, and the circum- 
stance that America is geographically remote will facilitate our 
political isolation, and the nations who go to war will hardly 
challenge our young nation, since it is clear that they will have 
nothing to gain by it. " 

This feeling, that America was to have nothing to do with 
European politics, and that the European nations should on no 
condition be allowed to extend their sphere of action on to the 
American continents, grew steadily. This national conviction 
rested primarily on two motives: firstly, America wanted to be 
sure of its national identity. It felt instinctively that, if it were to 
become involved in European conflicts, the European powers 
might interfere in the destinies of the smaller and growing nation, 
and that the danger of such interference would increase tre- 
mendously if the great nations of Europe were to gain a foot- 
hold in the neighbourhood of the young republic on this side 
of the ocean. In the second place, this nation felt that it had 
a moral mission to perform. The countries of Europe were 
groaning under oppression, whereas this nation had thrown 
oiF the English yoke, and proposed to keep the new continent 
free from such misrule. In order to make it the theatre for an 
experiment of modern democracy, no absolute monarchs were 
to set foot in this new world; the self-government of the people was 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 2ig 

to remain unquestioned, and every republic was to be free to 
work out its own salvation. 

Thus the desire for self-protection and a moral interest in the 
fight against absolutism have prescribed a course of holding aloof 
from European affairs, and of demanding that Europe should 
not reach out toward the American continents. This has become 
a cardinal principle in American politics. The opportunity soon 
came to express this principle very visibly in international pol- 
itics. The Holy Alliance between Austria, Russia, and Prussia 
was believed by America, ever since 1822, to have been arranged 
in order to regain for Spain the Spanish colonies in South 
America. England wished to ally itself with the United States; 
but they, with excellent tact, steered their course alone. In 1822 
the United States recognized the independence of the Central 
American republics; and in 1823, President Monroe, in his 
message to Congress, which was probably penned by John 
Quincy Adams, who was then Secretary of State, set down this 
policy in black and white. Monroe had previously asked ex- 
President Jefferson for his opinion, and Jefferson had written that 
our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to involve 
ourselves in European disputes; and our second, never to permit 
Europe to meddle in cis-Atlantic affairs, North and South 
America having their own interests, which are fundamentally 
different from those of Europe. Now the message of President 
Monroe contained the following declarations: "That we should 
consider any attempt on their part [of the allied powers] to extend 
their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our 
peace and safety," and "that we could not view any interposition 
for the purpose of oppressing [governments on this side of the 
water whose independence we had acknowledged], or controlling 
in any manner their destiny by any European power, in any other 
light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward 
the United States." 

Thus the famous Monroe Doctrine was announced to the 
world, and became an international factor sufficiently potent 
even to prevent Napoleon from realizing his plans regarding 
Mexico, and in more recent times to protect Venezuela from 
the consequences of her misdeeds. And although, at just that 
time of the Venezuelan dispute, the old Monroe Doctrine was 



220 THE AMERICANS 

in so far modified that the Presidential message conceded to 
European powers their right to press their claims by force of 
arms, so long as they claimed no permanent right of occupation, 
nevertheless the discussions ended with the extreme demand that 
foreign powers should be content with the promise of a South 
American state to pay its debts, and should receive no security; 
nor did the United States give security for the payment, either. 
After eighty years the doctrine is still asserted as it has been 
from the first, although the situation is in all respects very dif- 
ferent. A few brief instances of these changes must suffice us. 

In the first place, the two fundamental motives which gave rise 
to the doctrine, and in which all important documents are so 
clearly enunciated from the time of Washington to that of Monroe, 
have long since ceased to exist. The contrast between Europe 
as the land of tyranny and America as a democratic free soil, 
no longer holds; nor can the notion be bolstered up any longer, 
even for poHtical ends. In the first place all countries of Western 
Europe now enjoy popular representation, while the Latin re- 
publics of South America, with the exception of Chili and 
the Argentine Republic, are the most absurd travesties of freedom 
and democracy. Conditions in Venezuela and Colombia are 
now pretty well known. It has been shown, for instance, that 
about one-tenth of the population consists of highly cultivated 
Spaniards, who take no part in politics, and suffer under a 
shameless administrative misrule; that some eight-tenths more are 
a harmless and ignorant proletariat of partly Spanish and partly 
Indian descent — people who likewise have no political interest, 
and who are afraid of the men in power — while the remaining 
tenth, which is of mixed Spanish, Indian, and negro blood, holds 
in its hands the so-called republican government, and keeps 
itself in power with every device of extortion and deception, and 
from time to time splits up into parties which throw the whole 
country into an uproar, merely for the personal advantages of the 
party leaders. 

Even in America there is no longer a political back-woodsman 
who supposes that a republic like what the founders of the United 
States had in mind, can ever be made out of such material; and 
when, in spite of this, as in the negro question, some one gets up 
at the decisive moment of every discussion and tries to conjure with 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 221 

the Declaration of Independence, even such an appeal now often 
misses its effect. Since the Americans have gone into the 
Philippines they can no longer hold it an axiom that every govern- 
ment must be justified by the assent of the governed. People 
have learned to understand that the right of self-government must 
be earned, and is deserved only as the reward of hard work; that 
nations which have not yet grown to be orderly and peaceable 
need education like children who are not yet of age and do not 
know what is good for them. To say that the pitiable citizen of a 
corrupt South American republic is freer than the citizen of 
England, France, or Germany would be ridiculous; to protect the 
anarchy of these countries against the introduction of some 
European political system is at the present time not a moral 
obligation, surely, which the American Republic need feel itself 
called on to perform. The democratic idea, as realized in Ameri- 
can life, has become much more influential on the governments 
of Europe than on those of South America, notwithstanding their 
lofty constitutions, which are filled with the most high-flown moral 
and philosophical utterances, but are obeyed by no one. 

Now the other motive which supported the Monroe Doctrine, 
namely, the security of the United States and of their peaceful isola- 
tion, has to-day not the slightest validity; on the contrary, it is the 
superstitious faith in this doctrine which might conceivably en- 
danger the peace of the country. Of course, this is only in so 
far as the doctrine applies to South America, not to Central 
America. It would indeed be impossible for the United States 
to allow, say Cuba, in passing from Spanish hands, to come 
into possession of another European nation; in fact, no part of 
Central America could become the seat of new European colo- 
nies without soon becoming a seat of war. The construction of 
the canal across the isthmus confirms and insures the moral 
and political leadership of the United States in Central America 
and the Antilles. But the situation is quite different in South 
America. The Americans are too apt to forget that Europe is 
much nearer to the United States than, for instance, the Argen- 
tine Republic, and that if one wants to go from New York to the 
Argentine Republic, the quickest way to go is by way of Europe. 
And the United States have really very little industrial intercourse 
or sympathy with the Latin republics. A European power adjoins 



222 THE AMERICANS 

the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean; and 
the fact that England, at one time their greatest enemy, abuts 
along this whole border has never threatened the peace of the 
United States; but it is supposed to be an instant calamity if 
Italy or England or Holland gets hold of a piece of land far away 
in South America, in payment of debts or to ensure the safety 
of misused colonists. 

So long as the United States were small and weak, this ex- 
aggerated fear of unknown developments was intelligible; but 
now that the country is large and strong, and the supposed con- 
trast between the Old and New Worlds no longer exists, since the 
United States are much more nearly like the countries of Europe 
than like the South American republics, any argument for the 
Monroe Doctrine on the ground of misgivings or fear comes to 
be downright hysterical. In the present age of ocean cables, 
geographical distances disappear. The American deals with the 
Philippines as if they were before his door, although they are 
much farther from Washington than any South American coun- 
try is from Europe. Occasions for dispute with European coun- 
tries may, on the other hand, come up at any time without the 
slightest reference to South America, since the United States have 
now become an international power; it requires merely an ob- 
jectionable refusal to admit imports, some diplomatic mishap, or 
some unfairness in a matter of tariff. 

If, on the other hand, the European countries were to have 
colonies in South America, as they have in Africa, no more occa- 
sions for complaint or dissatisfaction would accrue to the United 
States than from the similar colonies in Africa. No Russian 
or French or Italian colony in South America would ever in the 
world give rise to a difficulty with the United States through any 
real opposition of interests, and could only do so because a 
doctrine forbidding such colonies, which had been adopted 
under quite different circumstances, was still bolstered up and 
defended. If the Monroe Doctrine were to-day to be applied no 
farther than Central America, and South America were to be 
exempted, the possibilities of a conflict with European powers 
would be considerably decreased. That which was meant 
originally to guarantee peace, has, under the now wholly altered 
conditions, become the greatest menace of war. 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 223 

But the main point is not that the motives which first led to the 
Monroe Doctrine are to-day invalid; the highest interests of the 
United States demand that this moribund doctrine be definitely 
given up. In the first place, it v^as never doubted that the exclu- 
sion of the Old World countries from the new American continents 
was only the conclusion of a premise, to the effect that the Ameri- 
cans themselves proposed to confine their political interests to their 
own continent. That was a wise policy in the times of Wash- 
ington and Monroe; and whether or not it would have been 
wise in the time of McKinley, it was in any case at that time 
thrown over. The Americans have united with the European 
forces to do battle in China; they have extended their own do- 
minion toward Asia; they have sent men-of-war to Europe on 
political missions; in short, the Americans have for years been 
extending their political influence around the world, and Secre- 
tary Hay has for a long time played an influential part in the 
European concert of powers. The United States have too often 
defended their Monroe claim on the ground of their own aloofness 
from these powers to feel justified in urging the claim when 
they no longer do keep aloof. 

There is another and more important consideration. The 
real interest of the United States with regard to South America 
is solely that that land shall develop as far as possible, that its 
enormous treasures shall be exploited, and that out of a prosper- 
ous commercial continent important trade advantages shall accrue 
to the United States. This is possible only by the' establishment 
of order there — the instant termination of anarchy. As long as the 
Monroe Doctrine is so unnecessarily held to, the miserable and 
impolitic stagnation of that ravaged country can never be bettered, 
since all the consequences of that doctrine work just in the 
opposite direction. It is sufficiently clear that progress will not 
be made until fresh, healthy, enterprising forces come in from 
outside; but now so soon as an Englishman or German or 
other European undertakes to earn his livelihood there, he 
is at once exposed to the shameless extortion and other chicanery 
of the so-called governments. And when European capital wishes 
to help the development of these countries, it is given absolutely 
no protection against their wretched politics. And all this is 
merely because the chartered rascals in power know that they 



224- THE AMERICANS 

can kill and steal with impunity, so long as the sacred Mon- 
roe Doctrine is there, like an enchanted wall, between them 
and the mother countries of their victims; they know only too 
well that no evil can come to them, since the statesmen at Wash- 
ington are bound down to a prejudice, and required scrupulously 
to protect every hair on their precious heads. All this prevents 
any infusion of good blood from coming into these countries, and 
so abandons the land entirely to the indolence of its inhabitants. 
The conditions would be economically sounder, in almost every 
part of South America, if more immigrants came in, and more 
especially if those that came could take a larger part in the gov- 
ernments. 

It would be somewhat different if the United States were to 
admit, as a consequence of the Monroe Doctrine, its own re- 
sponsibility for the public administration of these countries, for 
their debts and for whatever crimes they commit; in other words, 
if the United States were virtually to annex South America. 
There is no thought of this; the United States have recently, in 
the Venezuela matter, clearly declined all responsibility. If, 
while declining the responsibility, the United States persist in 
affirming the Monroe Doctrine, they are to be charged inevitably 
with helping on anarchy, artificially holding back the progress of 
one of the richest and least developed portions of the earth, and 
thereby hurting their own commercial outlook more than any 
European protective tariff could possibly do. The greater part 
Europe takes in South America, so much the more will trade and 
commerce prosper; and in this pioneer labour, as history has 
shown, the patient German is the best advance-agent. Almost all 
the commercial relations between the United States and the South 
American republics are meditated by European, and especially 
German, business houses. The trade of the United States with 
South America is to-day astonishingly small, but when finally the 
Monroe barrier falls away it will develop enormously. 

In all this America has not, from its previous policy, derived 
even the modest advantage of endearing itself to the inhabitants 
of these South American republics. Quite on the contrary, 
the Monroe Doctrine sounds like the ring of a sword in the South 
American ear. The American of the south is too vividly re- 
minded that, although the province of the United States is after 



EXTERNAL PROBLEMS 225 

all only a finite portion of the New World, the nation has, never- 
theless, set itself up as the master of both continents; and the 
natural consequence is, that all the small and weak countries join 
forces against the one great country and brood continually over 
their mistrust. The attempts of the United States to win the 
sympathies of the rest of America have brought no very great 
results — since, in the States, sympathy has been tempered with 
contempt, and in South America with fear. In short, the unprej- 
udiced American must come back every time to the ceterum censeo 
that the Monroe Doctrine must finally be given up. 

One point, however, must always be emphasized — that all the 
motives speaking against the doctrine will be efficient only so 
far as they appeal to the soul of the American people, and over- 
throw there the economically suicidal Monroe Doctrine. On the 
other hand, Europe would gain nothing by trying to tear in 
pieces the sacred parchment; no possible European interest in 
South America would compare in importance with the loss of 
friendship of the United States. And so long as the overwhelm- 
ing majority of Americans holds to its delusions, the hostility 
would be a very bitter one. Indeed, there would be no surer 
way of stopping the gradual abandonment of the doctrine than 
for Europe to attempt to dispute its validity. 

The process of dissolution must take place in America; but 
the natural interest and needs of the country so demand this 
development that it may be confidently expected. A new time 
has come: the provinciality of the Monroe Doctrine no longer 
does for America as a world power, and events follow their 
logical development; the time will not be long before the land 
of the Stars and Stripes will have extended across Western Can- 
ada to Alaska, and have annexed the whole of Central America; 
while the Latin republics of South America, on the other hand, 
will have been sprinkled in with English, Italian, French, and 
German colonies; and most of all, those republics themselves, by 
the lapse of the Monroe Doctrine, will have been won over to 
law and order, progress and economic health. The United States 
are too sound and too idealistic to continue to oppose the demands 
of progress for the sake of a mere fetish. 

Thus the dominion of this world power will grow. The in- 
fluence of the Army, and even more of the Navy, will help in 



226 THE AMERICANS 

this growth; even if the dreams of Captain Hobson are not real- 
ized. To be sure, the dangers will also grow apace; with a great 
navy comes the desire to use it. Nevertheless, one must not over- 
look the fact that international politics are much less a subject 
of public thought and discussion in America than in Europe. 
For the American thinks firstly of internal politics, and secondly of 
internal politics, and lastly of internal politics; and only at 
some distant day does he plan to meditate on foreign affairs. 
Unless the focus of public attention is distinctly transferred, 
the idea of expansion will meet with sufficient resistance to check 
its undue growth. 

There is specially a thoroughgoing distrust of militarism, and 
an instinctive fear that it works against democracy and favours 
despotism; and there is, indeed, no doubt that the increasingly 
important relations between this country and foreign powers 
put more authority into the hands of the Presidential and Sen- 
atorial oligarchy than the general public likes to see. Every 
slightest concealment on the part of the President or his Cabinet 
goes against the feelings of the nation, and this state of feeling 
will hardly alter; it comes from the depths of the American char- 
acter. On the other hand, it is combined with a positive belief 
in the moral mission of the United States, which are destined to 
gain their world-wide influence, not by might, but by the force 
of exemplary attainment, of complete freedom, admirable or- 
ganization, and hard work. Any one who observes the profound 
sources of this belief will be convinced that any different feelings 
in the public soul, any greed of power, and any imperialistic in- 
stincts, are only a passing intoxication. In its profoundest 
being, America is a power for peace and for ethical ideals. 



PART TWO 

ECONOMIC LIFE 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 

The Spirit of Self-Initiative 

"'TT^HE spirit aids! from anxious scruples freed, I write, 'In 
I the beginning was the deed!'" Others might write: In 
the beginning was the inexhaustible wealth of the soil; and 
still others, if their memory is short, might be tempted to say: 
In the beginning were the trusts! One who wishes to under- 
stand the almost fabulous economic development of the United 
States must, indeed, not simply consider its ore deposits and gold 
mines, its coal and oil fields, its wheat lands and cotton dis- 
tricts, its great forests and the supplies of water. The South 
Americans live no less in a country prospered by nature, and so 
also do the Chinese. South Africa offers entirely similar con- 
ditions to those of the North American continent, and yet its 
development has been a very different one; and, finally, a 
consideration of the peculiar forms of American industrial 
organization, as, for instance, the trusts, reveals merely symptoms 
and not the real causes which have been at work. 

The colossal industrial successes, along with the great evils and 
dangers which have come with them, must be understood from 
the make-up of the American character. Just as we have traced 
the political life of America back to a powerful instinct for self- 
determination, the free self-guidance of the individual, so we 
shall here find that it is the instinct for free self-initiative which has 
set in motion this tremendous economic fly-wheel. The pres- 
sure to be up and doing has opened the earth, tilled the fields, 
created industries, and developed such technical skill as to-day 
may even dream of dominating the world. 

But to grant that the essentials of such movements are not to 
be found in casual external circumstances, but must lie in the 
mental make-up of the nation, might lead in this case to ascribing 



2^0 THE AMERICANS 

the chief influence to quite a different mental trait. The average 
European, permeated as he is with Old World culture, is, in 
fact, convinced that this intense economic activity is the simple 
result of unbounded greed. The search for gold and the pursuit 
of the dollar, we often hear, have destroyed in the American 
soul every finer ambition; and since the American has no higher 
desire for culture, he is free to chase his mammon with undisguised 
and shameless greed. The barbarity of his soul, it is said, gives 
him a considerable economic advantage over others who have 
some heart as well as a pocket-book, and whose feelings incline 
to the humane. 

Whether such a contemptuous allegation is a useful weapon 
in the economic struggle, is not here in question. One who 
desires to understand the historical development of events in the 
New World is bound to see in all such talk nothing but distortion, 
and to realize that Europe could face its own economic future 
with less apprehension if it would estimate the powers of its great 
competitor more temperately and justly, and would ask itself 
honestly if it could not learn a thing or two here and there. 

Merely to ape American doings would, in the end, avail noth- 
ing; that which proceeds from intellectual and temperamental 
traits can be efi^ectively adopted by others only if they can acquire 
the same traits. It is useless to organize similar factories or 
trusts without imitating in every respect the men who first so 
organized themselves. Whether this last is necessary, he alone 
can say who has understood his neighbours at their best, and 
has not been contented to make a merely thoughtless and un- 
charitable judgment. A magnificent economic life such as that of 
America can never spring from impure ethical motives, and 
the person is very na'ive who supposes that a great business was 
ever built up by mere impudence, deception, and advertising. 
Every merchant knows that even advertisements benefit only 
a solid business, and that they run a bad one into the ground. 
And it is still more naive to suppose that the economic strength of 
America has been built up through underhanded competition 
without respect to law or justice, and impelled by nothing but a 
barbarous and purely material ambition. One might better 
believe that the twenty-story office buildings on lower Broadway 
are supported merely by the flagstones in the street; in point of fact, 



SELF-INiriATIVE 231 

no mere passer-by who does not actually see the foundations of 
such colossal structures can have an idea of how deep down under 
the soil these foundations go in order to find bed-rock. Just 
so the colossal fabric of American industry is able to tower so 
high only because it has its foundation on the hard rock of honest 
conviction. 

In the first place, we might look into the American's greed 
for gold. A German observes immediately that the American 
does not prize his possessions much unless he has worked for 
them himself; of this there are innumerable proofs, in spite of 
the opposite appearances on the surface. One of the most in- 
teresting of these is the absence of the bridal dower. In Ger- 
many or France, the man looks on a wealthy marriage as one of 
the most reliable means of getting an income; there are whole 
professions which depend on a man's eking out his entirely 
inadequate salary from property which he inherits or gets by 
marriage; and the eager search for a handsome dowry — in fact, 
the general commercial character of marriage in reputable 
European society everywhere — always surprises Americans. They 
know nothing of such a thing at home. Even when the parents 
of the bride are prosperous, it is unusual for a young couple to 
live beyond the means of the husband. Everywhere one sees the 
daughters of wealthy families stepping into the modest homes 
of their husbands, and these husbands would feel it to be a 
disgrace to depend on their prosperous fathers-in-law. An actual 
dowry received from the bride's parents during their lifetime 
is virtually unknown. Another instance of American contempt 
for unearned wealth, which especially contrasts with European 
customs, is the disapproval which the American always has 
for lotteries. If he were really bent on getting money, he would 
find the dower and the lottery a ready means; whereas, in fact, the 
lottery is not only in all its forms forbidden by law, but public 
opinion wholly disapproves of games of chance. The President 
of Harvard University, in a public address given a short time 
since, in which he spoke before a large audience of the change 
in moral attitude, was able to give a striking illustration of the 
transformation in the fact that two generations ago the city of 
Boston conducted a lottery, in order to raise money for rebuilding 
a university structure which had been destroyed by fire. He 



232 THE AMERICANS 

showed vividly how such a transaction would be entirely un- 
thinkable to-day, and how all American feelings would revolt 
at raising money for so good a cause as an educational institution 
by so immoral a means as a public lottery. The entire audience 
received this as a matter of course, apparently without a suspicion 
as to how many cathedrals are being built in Europe to-day from 
tickets at half a dollar. It was amusing to observe how Carnegie's 
friend, Schwab, who had been the greatly admired manager of the 
steel works, fell in public esteem when news came from the 
Riviera that he was to be seen at the gaming-tables of Monaco. 
The true American despises any one who gets money without 
working for it. Money is not the thing which is considered, but 
the manner of getting it. This is what the American cares for, 
and he prizes the gold he gets primarily as an indication of his 
ability. 

At first sight it looks as if this disinclination to gambling were not 
to be taken seriously. It would signify nothing that the police 
discover here and there a company of gamblers who have bar- 
ricaded the door; but a European might say that there is another 
sort of speculative fever which is very prevalent. Even Americans 
on the stock exchange often say, with a smile: We are a gam- 
bling nation; and from the point of view of the broker it v/ould be 
so. He sees how all classes of people invest in speculative securities, 
and how the public interests itself in shares which are subject to 
the greatest fluctuations; how the cab-driver and the hotel waiter 
pore nervously over the quotations, and how new mining stocks 
and industrial shares are greedily bought by school teachers 
and commercial clerks. The broker sees in this the people's 
desire for gambling, because he is himself thoroughly aware of the 
great risks which are taken, and knows that the investors can see 
only a few of the factors which determine prices. 

But in the public mind all this buying and selling looks very 
diff^erent. The small man, investing a few dollars in such doubt- 
ful certificates, never thinks of himself as a gambler; he thinks 
that he understands the market; he is not trusting to luck, but 
follows the quotations day by day for a long time, and asks his 
friends for "tips," until he is convinced that his own discretion 
and cunning will give him an advantage. If he were to think of 
his gain as matter of chance, as the broker thinks it is, he would 



SELF-INiriA TI VE 233 

not only not invest his money, but would be no longer attracted 
by the transactions. And whenever he loses, he still goes on, 
believing that he will be able the next time to figure out the 
turn of the market more accurately. 

The same is true of the wagers which the Anglo-Saxon is 
always making, because he loves excitement. For him a wager 
is not a true wager when it is merely a question of chance. Both 
sides make calculations, and have their special considerations 
which they believe will determine the outcome, and the winner 
feels his gain to be earned by his shrewdness. An ordinary 
game of chance does not attract the American — a fact which may 
be seen even in the grotesque game of poker. In a certain sense, 
the American's aversion to tipping servants reveals, perhaps, the 
same trait. The social inferiority which he feels to be implied 
in the acceptance of a fee, goes against the self-respect of the 
individual; but there is the additional disinclination here to re- 
ceiving money which is not strictly earned. 

There are positive traits corresponding to these negative ones; 
and especially among them may be noticed the use to which 
money is put after it is gotten. If the American were really 
miserly, he would not distribute his property with such a free hand. 
Getting money excites him, but keeping it is less interesting, and 
one sees not seldom the richest men taking elaborate precautions 
that only a small part of their money shall fall to their children, 
because they think that the possession of money which is not 
self-earned is not a blessing. From these motives one may un- 
derstand at once the magnificent generosity shown toward public 
enterprises. 

Public munificence cannot well be gauged by statistics, and 
especially not in America. Most of the gifts are made quietly, and 
of course the small gifts which are never heard about outweigh 
the larger ones; and, nevertheless, one can have a fair idea of 
American generosity by considering only the large gifts made 
for public ends. If we consider only the gifts of money which 
are greater than one thousand dollars, and which go to public 
institutions, we have in the year 1903 the pretty sum of ^76,935,000. 
There can be no doubt that all the gifts under one thousand 
dollars would make an equal sum. 

Of these public benefactions, ^40,700,000 went to educational 



23^ THE AMERICANS 

institutions. In that year, for instance, Harvard University 
received in all $5,000,000, Columbia University $3,000,000, and 
Chicage University over $10,000,000; Yale received $600,000, 
and the negro institute in Tuskegee the same amount; Johns 
Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania received about half 
of a million each. Hospitals and similar institutions were re- 
membered with $21,726,000; $7,583,000 were given to public 
libraries, $3,996,000 for religious purposes, and $2,927,000 to 
museums and art collections. Any one who lives in America 
knows that this readiness to give is general, from the Carnegies 
and Rockefellers down to the working-men, and that it is easy to 
obtain money from private purses for any good undertaking. 

One sees clearly, again, that the real attraction which the 
American feels for money-making does not lie in the having but 
only in the getting, from the perfect equanimity, positively 
amazing to the European, with which he bears his losses. To 
be sure, his irrepressible optimism stands him in good stead; 
he never loses hope, but is confident that what he has lost 
will soon be made up. But this would be no comfort to him 
if he did not care much less for the possession than for the get- 
ting of it. The American chases after money with all his might, 
exactly as on the tennis-court he tries to hit the ball, and it is the 
game he likes and not the prize. If he loses he does not feel as 
if he had lost a part of himself, but only as if he had lost the 
last set in a tournament. When, a short time ago, there was a 
terrific crash in the New York stock market and hundreds of mil- 
lions were lost, a leading Parisian paper said : " If such a financial 
crisis had happened here in France, we should have had panics, 
catastrophies, a slump in rentes^ suicides, street riots, a min- 
isterial crisis, all in one day: while America is perfectly quiet, 
and the victims of the battle are sitting down to collect their wits. 
France and the United States are obviously two entirely different 
worlds in their civilization and in their way of thinking. " 

As to the estimation of money and its acquirement, France 
and the United States are indeed as far apart as possible, while 
Germany stands in between. The Frenchman prizes money as 
such; if he can get it without labour, by inheritance or dowry, or 
by gambling, so much the better. If he loses it he loses a part 
of himself, and when he has earned enough to be sure of a 



SELF-INITIATIVE 235 

livelihood, he retires from money-making pursuits as soon as 
possible. It is well known that the ambition of the average 
Frenchman is to be a rentier. The American has exactly the 
opposite idea. Not only does he endure loss with indifference 
and despise gain which is not earned, but he would not for any 
price give up the occupation of making money. Whether he has 
much or little, he keeps patiently at work; and, as no scholar 
or artist would ever think of saying that he had done enough 
work, and would from now on become a scientific or literary 
rentier and live on his reputation, so no American, as long as 
he keeps his health, thinks of giving up his regular business. 

The profession of living from the income of investments is 
virtually unknown among men, and the young men who take up 
no money-making profession because they " don't need to,'* 
are able to retain the social respect of their fellows only by under- 
taking some sort of work for the commonwealth. A man who does 
not work at anything, no matter how rich he is, can neither 
get nor keep a social status. 

This also indicates, then, that the American does not want 
his money merely as a means for material comfort. Of course, 
wealthy Americans are becoming more and more accustomed 
to provide every thinkable luxury for their wives and daughters. 
Nowhere is so much expended for dresses, jewelry, equi- 
pages and service, for country houses and yachts, works of art 
and private libraries; and many men have to keep pretty steadily 
at work year in and year out in order to meet their heavy expen- 
ditures. And the same thing is repeated all down the social 
scale. According to European standards, even the working-man 
lives luxuriously. But, in spite of this, no person who has really 
come into the country will deny that material pleasures are 
less sought after for themselves in the New World than in the 
Old. It always strikes the European as remarkable how very 
industrious American society is, and how relatively little bent 
on pleasure. It has often been said that the American has 
not yet learned how to enjoy life; that he knows very well how 
to make money, but not how to enjoy it. And that is quite true; 
except that it leaves out of account the main point — which is, 
that the American takes the keenest delight in the employment 
of all his faculties in his work, and in the exercise of his own 



2s6 THE AMERICANS 

initiative. This gives him more pleasure than the spending 
of money could bring him. 

It is, therefore, fundamentally false to stigmatize the American as 
a materialist, and to deny his idealism. A people is supposed to 
be thoroughly materialistic when its sphere of interests com- 
prises problems relating only to the world of matter, and 
fancies itself to be highly idealistic when it is mainly concerned 
with intangible objects. But this is a pure confusion of ideas. 
In philosophy, indeed, the distinction between materialistic and 
idealistic systems of thought is to be referred to the importance 
ascribed to material and to immaterial objects. Materialism is, 
then, that pseudo-philosophical theory which supposes that all 
reality derives from the existence of material objects; and it is 
an idealistic system which regards the existence of matter as 
dependent on the reality of thought. But it is mere play on 
words to call nations realistic or idealistic on the strength of 
these metaphysical conceptions, instead of using the words in 
their social and ethical significations. For in the ethical world a 
materialistic position would be one in which the aim of life was 
enjoyment, while that point of view would be idealistic which 
found its motive not in the pleasant consequences of the deed, but 
in the value of the deed itself. 

If we hold fast to the meaning of materialism and idealism in 
this ethical sense, we shall see clearly that it is entirely indiflPerent 
whether the people who have these diametrically opposed views 
of life are themselves busy with tangible or with intangible things. 
The man who looks at life materialistically acts, not for the act itself, 
but for the comfortable consequences which that act may have; 
and these consequences may satisfy the selfish pleasure as well if 
they are immaterial as if they are material objects. It is indifferent 
whether he works for the satisfaction of the appetites, for the 
hoarding up of treasures, or for the gratification to be found in 
politics, science, and art. He is still a materialist so long as he 
has not devotion, so long as he uses art only as a means to 
pleasure, science only as a source of fame, politics as a source 
of power ; and, in general, so long as the labour that he does is 
only the means to an end. But the man who is an idealist in 
life acts because he believes in the value of the deed. It makes 
no difference to him whether he is working on material or intel- 



SELF-INITIATIVE 237 

lectual concerns ; whether he speaks or rhymes, paints, governs, 
or judges; or whether he builds bridges and railroad tracks, 
drains swamps and irrigates deserts, delves into the earth, or 
harnesses the forces of nature. In this sense the culture of the 
Old World threatens at a thousand points to become crassly ma- 
terialistic, and not least of all just where it most loudly boasts 
of intellectual wealth and looks down with contempt on everything 
which is material. And in this sense the culture of the New 
World is growing to the very purest idealism, and by no means 
least where it is busy with problems of the natural world of 
matter, and where it is heaping up economic wealth. 

This is the main point: The economic life means to the 
American a realizing of efforts which are in themselves precious. 
It is not the means to an end, but is its own end. If two blades of 
grass grow where one grew before, or two railroad tracks where 
there was but one; if production, exchange, and commerce increase 
and undertaking thrives, then life is created, and this is, in itself, 
a precious thing. The European of the Continent esteems the 
industrial life as honest, but not as noble; economic activities 
seem to him good for supporting himself and his family, but his 
duty is merely to supply economic needs which are now exist- 
ing. 

The merchant in Europe does not feel himself to be a free 
creator like the artist or scholar: he is no discoverer, no maker; 
and the mental energy which he expends he feels to be spent 
in serving an inferior purpose, which he serves only because 
he has to live. That creating economic values can itself be the 
very highest sort of accomplishment, and in itself alone desirable, 
whether or not it is useful for the person who creates, and that it is 
great in itself to spread and increase the life of the national eco- 
nomic organization, has been, indeed, felt by many great merchants 
in the history of Europe, and many a Hanseatic leader realizes it 
to-day. But the whole body of people in Europe does not know 
this, while America is thoroughly filled with the idea. Just as 
Hutten once cried: " Jahrhundert, es ist eine Lust, in dir zu leben: 
die Wissenschaften und die Kunste bluhen," so the American 
might exclaim: It is a pleasure to live in our day and generation; 
industry and commerce now do thrive. Every individual feels 
himself exalted by being a part of such a mighty whole, and the 



238 THE AMERICANS 

general intellectual effects cf this temper show themselves in the 
entire national life. 

A nation can never do its best in any direction unless it believes 
thoroughly in the intrinsic value of its work; whatever is done 
merely through necessity is never of great national significance, 
and second-rate men never achieve the highest things. If the 
first minds of a nation look down with contempt on economic 
life, if there is no real belief in the ideal value of industry, and 
if creative minds hold aloof from it, that nation will necessarily 
be outdone by others in the economic field. But where the ablest 
strength engages with idealistic enthusiasm in the service of the 
national economic problems, the nation rewards what the people 
do as done in the name of civilization, and the love of fame and 
work together spur them on more than the material gain which 
they will get. Indeed, this gain is itself only their measure of 
success in the service of civilization. 

The American merchant works for money in exactly the sense 
that a great painter works for money; the high price which is 
paid for his picture is a very welcome indication of the general 
appreciation of his art: but he would never get this appreciation 
if he were working for the money instead of his artistic ideals. 
Economically to open up this gigantic country, to bring the 
fields and forests, rivers and mountains into the service of economic 
progress, to incite the millions of inhabitants to have new needs 
and to satisfy these by their own resourcefulness, to increase 
the wealth of the nation, and finally economically to rule the 
world and within the nation itself to raise the economic power 
of the individual to undreamt-of importance, has been the work 
which has fascinated the American. And every individual 
has felt his co-operation to be ennobled by his firm belief in the 
value of such an aim for the culture of the world. 

To find one's self in the service of this work of progress attracts 
even the small boy. As a German boy commences early to write 
verses or draw little sketches, in America the young farmer lad or 
city urchin tries to come somehow into this national, industrial activ- 
ity; and whether he sells newspapers on the street or milks the cow 
on a neighbour's farm, he is proud of the few cents which he 
brings home — not because it is money, but because he has earned 
it, and the coins are the only possible proof that his activities 



SELF-INiriA TI VE 2^9 

have contributed to the economic life of his country. It is this 
alone which spurs him on and fills him with ambition; and if the 
young newspaper boy becomes a great railroad president, or the 
farmer's lad a wealthy factory owner, and both, although worth 
their millions, still work on from morning till night consumed by 
the thought of adding to the economic life of their nation, and to 
this end undertake all sorts of new enterprises, the labour itself 
has been, from beginning to end, its own reward. The content 
of such a man's life is the work of economic progress. 

Men who have so felt have made the nation great, and no 
American would admit that a man who gave his life to government 
or to law, to art or science, would be able to make his life at all 
more significant or valuable for the ends of culture. This is 
not materialism. Thus it happens that the most favoured youths, 
the socially most competent talents, go into economic life, and the 
sons of the best families, after their course at the university, step 
enthusiastically into the business house. One can see merely 
from ordinary conversation how thoroughly the value of economic 
usefulness is impressed on the people. They speak in America 
of industrial movements with as much general interest as one 
would find manifested in Europe over politics, science, or art. 
Men who do not themselves anticipate buying or selling securi- 
ties in the stock market, nevertheless discuss the rise and fall 
of various industrial and railroad shares as they would discuss 
Congressional debates; and any new industrial undertaking in a 
given city fills the citizens with pride, as may be gathered from 
their chance conversations. 

The central point of this whole activity is, therefore, not greed, 
nor the thought of money, but the spirit of self-initiative. It is 
not surprising that this has gone through such a lively develop- 
ment. Just as the spirit of self-determination was the product 
of Colonial days, so the spirit of self-initiative is the necessary 
outcome of pioneer life. The men who came over to the New 
World expected to battle with the natural elements; and even 
where nature had lavished her treasures, these had still to be 
conquered; the forests must be felled and the marshes drained. 
Indeed, the very spot to which the economic world comes to- 
day to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Louisiana 
Purchase, the city of St. Louis, which has to-day 8,000 fac- 



2^0 THE AMERICANS 

tories, it must not be forgotten was three generations ago a 
wilderness. 

From the days when the first pioneers journeyed inland from 
the coast, to the time, over two hundred years later, when the 
railroad tracks were carried over the Rocky Mountains from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, the history of the nation has been 
of a long struggle with nature and of hard-earned conquests; and 
for many years this fight was carried on by men who toiled 
single-handed, as it were — by thousands of pioneers working all 
at once, but far apart. The man who could not hold out under 
protracted labour was lost; but the difficulty of the task spurred 
on the energies of the strong and developed the spirit of self- 
initiative to the utmost. It was fortunate that the men who came 
over to undertake this work had been in a way selected for it: for 
only those who had resolution had ventured to leave their native 
hearth-stones. Only the most energetic risked the voyage across 
the ocean in those times, and this desire to be up and doing found 
complete satisfaction in the New World; for, as Emerson said: 
"America is another name for opportunity." 

The heritage of the pioneer days cannot vanish, even under the 
present changed conditions. This desire to realize one's self by 
being economically busied is indeed augmented to-day by many 
other considerations. Both the political and the social life of the 
democracy demand equality, and therefore exclude all social 
classes, and titles, and all honourary political distinctions. Now, 
such uniformity would, of course, be unendurable in a society 
which had no real distinctions, and therefore inevitably such 
distinguishing factors as are not excluded come to be more and 
more important. A distinction between classes on the basis 
of property can be met in monarchial countries by a distinction 
in title and family, and so made at least very much less im- 
portant than in democratic nations. And thus it necessarily 
comes about that, where an official differentiation is objected 
to on principle, wealth is sought as a means to such discrimi- 
nation. In the United States, however, wealth has this great 
significance only because it is felt to measure the individual's 
successful initiative; and the simple equation between prosperity 
and real work is more generally recognized by the popular mind 
than the actual conditions justify. Thus it happens also that the 



SELF-INITIATIVE 241 

American sets his standard of life high. He wishes in this way 
to express the fact that he has passed life's examination well, that 
he has been enterprising, and has won the respect of those around 
him. This desire for a high standard of living which springs 
from the intense economic enthusiasm works back thereon, and 
greatly stimulates it once more. 

One of the first consequences of this spirit of initiative is, 
that every sort of true labour is naturally respected, and never 
involves any disesteem. In fact, one sees continually in this 
country men who go from one kind of labour to another which, 
according to European ideals, would be thought less honourable. 
The American is especially willing to take up a secondary oc- 
cupation besides his regular calling in order to increase his income, 
and this leads, sometimes, to striking contrasts. Of course there 
are some limits to this, and social etiquette is not wholly without 
influence, although the American will seldom admit it. No one 
is surprised if a preacher gives up the ministry in order to be- 
come an editor or official in an industrial organization; but every 
one is astonished if he becomes agent for an insurance company; 
amazed if he goes to selling a patent medicine, and would be 
positively scandalized if he were to buy a beer-saloon. 

It is much the same with avocations. If the student in the 
university tutors other students, it is quite right; if, during the 
university vacation, he becomes bell-boy in a summer hotel, or 
during the school year attends to furnaces in order to continue 
his studies, people are sorry that he has to do this, but still 
account him perfectly respectable; but if, on the other hand, he 
turns barber or artist's model, he is lost, because being a model 
is passive — it is not doing anything; and cutting hair is a menial 
service, not compatible with the dignity of the student. And 
thus it is that the social feeling in the New World practically 
corrects the theoretical maxims as to the equal dignity of every 
kind of labour, although, indeed, such maxims are very much 
more generally recognized than in the Old World. And every- 
where the deciding principle of differentiation is the matter of 
self-initiative. 

The broadly manifest social equality of the country, of which 
we shall have to speak more minutely in another connection, 
would be actually impossible if this belief in the equivalence of 



242 THE AMERICANS 

all kinds of work did not rule the national mind. Whether the 
work brings much or little, or requires much or little prepa- 
ration, is thought to be unimportant in determining a man's status; 
but it is important that his life involves initiative, or that he 
not merely passively exists. 

A people which places industrial initiative so high must be 
industrious; and, in fact, there is no profounder impression to be 
had than that the whole population is busily at work, and that 
all pleasures and everything which presupposes an idle moment 
are there merely to refresh people and prepare them for more 
work. In order to be permanently industrious, a man has to 
learn best how to utilize his powers; and just in this respect 
the American nation has gone ahead of every other people. 
Firstly, it is sober. A man who takes liquor in the early part 
of the day cannot accomplish the greatest amount of work. 
When the American is working he does not touch alcohol until 
the end of the day, and this is as true of the millionaire and bank 
president as of the labourer or conductor. On the other hand, the 
American workman knows that only a well-nourished body can 
do the most work, and what the workman saves by not buying 
beer and brandy he puts into roast beef. It has often been 
observed, and especially remarked on by German observers, 
that in spite of his extraordinary tension, the American never 
overdoes. The working-man in the factory, for example, seldom 
perspires at his work. This comes from a knowledge of how 
to work so as in the end to get out of one's self the greatest 
possible amount. 

Very much the same may be said of the admirable way In 
which the Americans make the most of their time. Superficial 
observers have often supposed the American to be always in a hur- 
ry, whereas the opposite is the case. The man who has to hurry 
has badly disposed of his time, and, therefore, has not the necessary 
amount to finish any one piece of work. The American is never 
in a hurry, but he so disposes his precious time that nothing shall 
be lost. He will not wait nor be a moment idle; one thing fol- 
lows closely after another, and with admirable precision; each 
task is finished in its turn; appointments are made and kept on 
the minute; and the result is, that not only no unseemly haste 
is necessary, but also there is time for everything. It is aston- 



SELF-INITIATIVE 243 

ishing how well-known men in political, economic, or intellectual 
life, who are loaded with a thousand responsibilities and an 
apparently unreasonable amount of work, have, by dint of the 
wonderful disposition of their own time and that of their as- 
sistants, really enough for everything and even to spare. 

Among the many things for which the American has time, 
by reason of his economical management of it, are even some 
which seem unnecessary for a busy man. He expends, for ex- 
ample, an extraordinary large fraction of his time in attending 
to his costume and person, in sport, and in reading newspapers, 
so that the notion which is current in Europe that the American 
is not only always in a hurry, but has time for nothing outside of 
his work, is entirely wrong. 

This saving of strength by the proper disposal of time cor- 
responds to a general practicality in every sort of work. Bus- 
iness is carried on in a business-like way. The banker, whose 
residence is filled with sumptuous treasures of art, allows nothing 
unpractical to come into his office for the sake of adornment. A 
certain strict application to duty is the feeling one gets from every 
work-room; and while the foreigner feels a certain barrenness 
about it, the American feels that anything different shows a lack 
of earnestness and practical good sense. The extreme punctu- 
ality with which the American handles his correspondence is 
typical of him. Statistics show that no other country in the 
world sends so many letters for every inhabitant, and every busi- 
ness letter is replied to on the same day with matter-of-fact 
conciseness. It is like a tremendous apparatus that accomplishes 
the greatest labour with the least friction, by means of the precise 
adaptation of part to part. 

A nation which is after self-initiative must inspire the spirit 
of initiative in every single co-operator. Nothing is more char- 
acteristic of this economic body than the intensity with which 
each workman — taking the word in its broadest sense — thinks 
and acts for himself. In this respect, too, outsiders often mis- 
understand the situation. One hears often from travellers in 
America that the country must be dwarfing to the intelligence 
of its workmen, because it uses so much machinery that the in- 
dividual workman comes to see only a small part of what is being 
done in the factory and, so to say, works the same identical lever 



244. "THE AMERICANS 

tor life. He operates always a certain small part of some other 
part of the whole. Nothing could be less exact, and a person 
who comes to such a conclusion is not aware that even the small- 
est duties are extremely complex, and that, therefore, special- 
ization does not at all introduce an undesirable uniformity in 
labour. It is specialization on the one hand which guarantees the 
highest mastery, and on the other lets the workman see even 
more the complexity of what is going on, and inspires him to 
get a full comprehension of the thing in hand and perhaps to 
suggest a few improvements. 

Any man who is at all concerned with the entire field of opera- 
tions, or who is moving constantly from one special process to 
another, can never come to that fully absorbed state of the at- 
tention which takes cognizance of the slightest detail. Only the 
man who has concentrated himself and specialized, learns to note 
fine details; and it is only in this way that he becomes so much 
a master in his special department that any one else who attempts 
to direct him succeeds merely in interfering and spoiling the 
output. In short, such a workman is face to face with intricate 
natural processes, and is learning straight from nature. It is 
in the matter of industrial technique exactly as in science. A 
person not acquainted with science finds it endlessly monotonous, 
and cannot understand how a person should spend his whole 
life studying beetles or deciphering Assyrian inscriptions. But 
a man who knows the method of science realizes that the narrower 
a field of study becomes, the more full of variety and unexpected 
beauties it is found to be. The triumph of technical special- 
ization in America lies just in this. If a single man works at some 
special part of some special detail of an industrial process, he 
more and more comes to find in his narrow province an amazing 
intricacy which the casual observer looking on cannot even sus- 
pect; and only the man who sees this complexity is able to discover 
new processes and improvements on the old. So it is that the 
specialized workman is he who constantly contributes to perfect 
technique, proposes modifications, and in general exercises all the 
intelligence he has, in order to bring himself on in his profession. 
Just as we have seen how the spirit of self-determination which 
resides at the periphery of the body politic has been the peculiar 
strength of American political life, so this free initiative in the 



SELF-INITIATIVE 2^5 

periphery, this economic resourcefulness of the narrow specialists, 
is the peculiar strength of all American industry. 

The spirit of self-initiative does not know pettiness. Any one 
who goes into economic life merely for the sake of what he can 
get out of it, thinks it clever to gain small, unfair profits; but 
whosoever views his industry in a purely idealistic spirit, and 
really has some inner promptings, is filled with an interest in the 
whole play — sees an economic gain in anything which profits 
both capital and labour, and only there, and so has a large outlook 
even within his narrow province. The Americans constantly com- 
plain of the economic smallness of Europe, and even the well- 
informed leaders of American industry freely assert that the 
actual advance in American economic culture does not lie in the 
natural resources of the country, but rather in the broad, free 
initiative of the American people. The continental Europeans, 
it is said, frustrate their own economic endeavours by being 
penny-wise and observant of detail in the wrong place, and by 
lacking the courage to launch big undertakings. There is no 
doubt that it was the lavishness of nature which firstly set Ameri- 
can initiative at work on a broad scale. The boundless prairies and 
towering mountains which the pioneers saw before them inspired 
them to undertake great things, and to overlook small hindrances, 
and in laying out their first plans to overlook small details. 
American captains of industry often say that they purposely pay 
no attention to a good many European methods, because they 
find such pedantic endeavour to economize and to achieve minute 
perfections to be wasteful of time and unprofitable. 

The same spirit is found, as well, in fields other than the in- 
dustrial. When the American travels he prefers to pay out 
round sums rather than to haggle over the price of things, even 
although he pays considerably more thereby than he otherwise 
would. And nothing makes him more angry than to find that 
instead of stating a high price at the outset, the person with 
whom he is dealing ekes out his profit by small additional charges. 
This large point of view involves such a contempt of petty detail 
as to astonish Europeans. Machines costing hundreds of thou- 
sands of dollars, which were new yesterday, are discarded to- 
day, because some improvement has been discovered; and the 
best is everywhere found none too good to be used in this mag- 



246 THE AMERICANS 

nificent industrial system. If the outlay is to correspond to the 
result, there must be no parsimony. 

A similar trait is revealed in the way in which every man 
behaves toward his neighbour. It is only the petty man who is envi- 
ous, and envy is a word which is not found in the American vocab- 
ulary. If one's own advantage is not the goal, but general 
economic progress, then the success of another man is almost 
as great a pleasure as one's own success. It is for the American 
an aesthetic delight to observe, and in spirit to co-operate with 
economic progress all along the line; and the more others accom- 
plish the more each one realizes the magnificence of the whole 
industrial life. Men try to excel one another, as they have to 
do wherever there is free competition; and such rivalry is the best 
and surest condition for economic progress. Americans use every 
means in their power to succeed, but if another man comes out 
ahead they neither grumble nor indulge in envy, but rather 
gather their strength for a new effort. Even this economic 
struggle is carried on in the spirit of sport. The fight itself is 
the pleasure. The chess-player who is checkmated in an ex- 
citing game is not sorry that he played, and does not envy the 
winner. 

This conviction, that one neither envies nor is envied, where- 
by all competitive struggle comes to be pervaded with a certain 
spirit of co-operation, ennobles all industrial activities, and the 
immediate effect is a feeling of mutual confidence. The degree 
to which Americans trust one another is by no means realized on 
the European Continent. A man relies on the self-respect of his 
commercial associates in a way which seems to the European 
mind almost fatuous, and yet herein lies just the strength and 
security of the economic life of this country. 

It is interesting, in a recently published harangue against the 
Standard Oil Company, to read what a high-handed, Napoleonic 
policy Rockefeller has pursued, and then, in the midst of the 
fierce accusations, to find it stated that agreements involving 
millions of dollars and the economic fate of thousands of people 
were made merely orally. All his confederates took the word 
of Rockefeller to be as good as his written contract, and such 
mutual confidence is everywhere a matter of course, whether it 
is a millionaire who agrees to pay out a fortune or a street urchin 



SELF-INITIATIVE 247 

who goes off to change five cents. Just as public, so also commer- 
cial, affairs get on with very few precautions, and every man 
takes his neighbour's check as the equivalent of money. The 
whole economic life reveals everywhere the profoundest con- 
fidence; and undoubtedly this circumstance has contributed, 
more than almost anything else, to the successful growth of large 
organizations in America. 

The spirit of self-initiative goes out in another direction. It 
makes the American optimistic, and so sure of success that no 
turn of fortune can discourage him. And such an optimism is nec- 
essary to the man who undertakes great enterprises. It was 
an undertaking to cross the ocean, and another to press on from 
the coast to the interior; it was an undertaking to bring nature 
to terms, to conjure up civilization in a wild country, and to 
overcome enemies on all hands; and yet everything has seemed to 
succeed. With the expansion of the country has grown the 
individual's love of expansion, his delight in undertaking new 
enterprises, not merely to hold his own, but to go on and to stake 
his honour and fortune and entire personality in the hope of 
realizing something as yet hardly dreamed of. Any Yankee is in- 
toxicated with the idea of succeeding in a new enterprise; he plans 
such things at his desk in school, and the more venturesome 
they are the more he is fascinated. 

Nothing is more characteristic of this adventurous spirit than 
the way in which American railroads have been projected. In 
other countries railroads are built to connect towns which already 
exist. In America the railroad has created new towns; the 
engineer and capitalist have not laid their tracks merely where 
the land was already tilled, but in every place where they could 
foresee that a population could support itself. At first came the 
railroad, and then the men to support it. The freight car came 
first, and then the soil was exploited and made to supply the 
freight. Western communities have almost all grown up around 
the railway stations. To be sure, every railway company has 
done this in its own interest, but the whole undertaking has been 
immediately productive of new civilization. 

Any person who optimistically believes that a problem has only 
to be discovered in order to be solved, will be sure to develop that 
intellectual quality which has always characterized the American: 



248 THE AMERICANS 

the spirit of invention. There is no other country in the 
world where so much is invented. This is shown not merely in 
the fact that an enormous number of patents is granted every 
year, but also where there is nothing to patent, the Yankee ex- 
ercises his ingenuity every day. From the simplest tool up to 
the most complicated machine, American invention has improved 
and perfected, and made the theoretically correct practically ser- 
viceable as well. To be sure, the cost of human labour in a thinly 
settled country has had a great influence on this development; 
but a special talent also has lain in this direction — a real genius 
for solving practical problems. Every one knows how much the 
American has contributed to the perfection of the telegraph, 
telephone, incandescent light, phonograph and sewing-machine, 
to watch-making machinery, to the steamboat and locomotive, 
the printing-press and typewriter, to machinery for mining and 
engineering, and to all sorts of agricultural and manufacturing 
devices. Invention and enterprise are seen working together in 
the fact that every new machine, with all its improvements, goes 
at once to every part of the country. Every farmer in the farthest 
West wants the latest agricultural machinery; every artisan adopts 
the newest improvements; in every office the newest and most 
approved telegraphic and telephonic appliances are used; in 
short, every man appropriates the very latest devices to further 
his own success. Of course, in this way the commercial value 
of every improvement is greatly increased, and this encourages 
the inventor to still further productiveness. It so happens that 
larger sums of money are lavished in perfect good faith in order 
to solve certain problems than any European could imagine. 
If an inventor can convince a company that his principle is sound, 
the company is ready to advance millions of dollars for new 
experiments until the machine is perfected. 

The extraordinarily wide adoption of every invention does 
not mean that most inventions are made by such men as Edison 
and Bell and their colleagues. Every factory workman is quite 
as much concerned to improve the tools which his nation uses, 
and every artisan at his bench is busy thinking out this or that 
little change in a process or method; and many of them, after 
their work, frequent the public libraries in order to work through 
technical books and the Patent Reports. It is no wonder that an 



SELF-INITIATIVE 249 

American manufacturer, on hearing that a new machine had 
been discovered in Europe, conservatively declared that he did 
not know what the machine was, but knew for sure that America 
would improve on it. 

Only one consequence of the spirit of self-initiative remains 
to be spoken of — the absolute demand for open competition. 
In order to exercise initiative, a man must have absolutely free 
play; and if he believes in the intrinsic value of economic culture, 
he will be convinced that free play for the development of in- 
dustrial power is abstractly and entirely right. This does not 
wholly exclude an artificial protection of certain economic institu- 
tions which are weak — as, for instance, the protection of certain 
industries by means of a high tariff — so long as in every line all men 
are free to compete with one another. Monopoly is the only 
thing — because it strangles competition — which offends the in- 
stinct of the American; and in this respect American law goes 
further than a European would expect. One might suppose 
that, believing as they do in free initiative, Americans would 
claim the right of making such industrial combinations as they 
liked. When several parallel railroads, which traverse several 
states and compete severely with one another, finally make a 
common agreement to maintain prices, they seem at first sight to 
be exercising a natural privilege. The traffic which suffers no 
longer by competition is handled at a less expense by this con- 
solidation, and so the companies themselves and the travelling 
public are both benefited. But the law of the United States 
takes a different point of view. The average American is sus- 
picious of a monopoly, even when it is owned by the state or 
city; he is convinced from the beginning that the service will in 
some way or other be inferior to what it would be under free 
competition; and most of all, he dislikes to see any industrial 
province hedged in so that competitors are no longer free to 
come in. The reason why the trusts have angered and excited 
the American to an often exaggerated degree is, that they approach 
perilously near to being monopolies. 

This spirit of self-initiative under free competition exists, 
of course, not alone in individuals. Towns, cities, counties, 
and states evince collectively just the same attitude; the same 
optimism and spirit of invention and initiative, and the same 



250 THE AMERICANS 

pioneer courage, inspire the collective will of city and state. 
Especially in the West, various cities and communities do things 
in a sportsman-like w^ay. It is as if one city or state v^ere playing 
foot-ball against another, and exerting every effort to v^'m: and 
here once more there is no petty jealousy. It was from such an 
optimistic spirit of enterprise, certainly, that the city of St. Louis 
resolved to invite all the world to its exposition, and that the State 
of Missouri gave its enthusiastic approval and support to its 
capital city. The sums to be laid out on such bold undertakings 
are put at a generous figure, and no one asks anxiously whether 
he is ready or able to undertake such a thing, but he is fascinated 
by the thought that such an industrial festival around the cascades 
of Forest Park, near the City of St. Louis, will stimulate the whole 
industrial life of the Mississippi Valley. One already sees that 
Missouri is disposed to become a Pennsylvania of the West, and 
to develop her rich resources into a great industry. 

We must not suppose, in all this, that such a spirit of initiative 
involves no risk, or that no disadvantages follow into the bargain. 
It may be easily predicted that, just by reason of the energy which 
is so intrinsic to it, self-initiative will sometime overstep the bounds 
of peace and harmony. Initiative will become recklessness, care- 
lessness of nature, carelessness of one's neighbour, and, finally, 
carelessness of one's self. 

A reckless treatment of nature has, in fact, characterized 
the American pioneer from the first. The wealth of nature 
has seemed so inexhaustible, that the pioneers found it natural 
to draw on their principal instead of living on their income. 
Everywhere they used only the best which they found; they cut 
down the finest forests first, and sawed up only the best parts 
of the best logs. The rest was wasted. The farmers tilled only 
the best soil, and nature was dismantled and depleted in a way 
which a European, who is accustomed to precaution, finds positive- 
ly sinful. And the time is now passed when this can go on safely. 
Good, arable land can nowhere be had for nothing to-day; the 
cutting down of huge forests has already had a bad effect on the 
rainfall and water supply, and many efforts are now being made 
to atone for the sins of the past by protecting and replanting. 
Intensive methods are being introduced in agriculture; but the 
work of thoughtful minds meets with a good deal of resistance 



SELF-INITIA TI VE 251 

in the recklessness of the masses, who, so far as nature is in 
question, think very Httle of their children's children, but are 
greedy for instant profits. 

The man, moreover, v^ho ardently desires to play an important 
part in industry is easily tempted to be indifferent of his fellows. 
We have shown that an American is not jealous or distrustful 
of them, that he gives and expects frankness, and that he respects 
their rights. But when he once begins to play, he wants to win at 
any cost; and then, so long as he observes the rules of the game, 
he considers nothing else; he has no pity, and will never let his 
undertaking be interfered with by sentimental reasons. There 
is no doubt at all that the largest American industrial enterprises 
have ruined many promising lives; no doubt that the very men 
who give freely to public ends have driven their chariots over 
many industrial corpses. The American, who is so incomparably 
good-natured, amiable, obliging, and high-minded, admits him- 
self that he is sharp in trade, and that the American industrial 
spirit requires a sort of military discipline and must be brutal. 
If the captain of industry were anxiously considerate of persons' 
feelings, he would never have achieved industrial success any 
more than a compassionate and tearful army would win a victory. 

But the American is harder on himself than on any one else. 
We have shown how, in his work, he conserves his powers and 
utilizes them economically; but he sets no bounds to the in- 
tellectual strain, the intensity of his nervous activities, and only 
too often he ruins his health in the too great strain which brings 
his success. The bodies of thousands have fertilized the soil for 
this great industrial tree — men who have exhausted their power 
in their exaggerated commercial ambitions. The real secret of 
American success is that, more than any other country in the 
world, she works with the young men and uses them up. Young 
men are in all the important positions where high intellectual 
tension is required. 

In other directions, too, the valuable spirit of self-initiative 
shows great weaknesses and dangers. The confidence which 
the American gives his neighbour in business often comes to be 
inexcusable carelessness. In reading the exposures made of 
the Ship-Building Trust, one sees how, without a dishonest in- 
tent, crimes can actually be committed merely through thoughtless 



252 THE AMERICANS 

confidence. One sees that each one of the great capitalists here 
involved relied on the other, v^hile no one really investigated for 
himself. 

There is another evil arising from the same intense activity, 
although, to be sure, it is more a matter of the past than of the 
future. This is the vulgar display of v^ealth. When economic 
usefulness is the main ambition, and the only measure of success 
is the money v^hich is won, it is natural that under more or less 
primitive social conditions every one should v^ish to attest his 
merits by displaying w^ealth. Large diamonds have then much 
the same function as titles and orders; they are the symbols of 
successful endeavour. In its vulgar form all such display is 
now virtually relegated to undeveloped sections of the country. 
In the parts where culture is older, where wealth is in its second 
or third generation, every one knows that his property is more 
useful in the bank than on his person. 

In spite of this, the nation expends an unduly large part of 
its profits in personal adornment, in luxuries of the toilet, in 
horses and carriages and expensive residences. The American 
is bound to have the best, and feels himself lowered if he has to take 
the second best. The most expensive seats in an auditorium are 
always the best filled, and the opera is thinly attended only 
when it is given at reduced prices. It is just in the most expen- 
sive hotels that one has to engage a room beforehand. Every- 
where that expenditure can be observed by others, the American 
would rather renounce a pleasure entirely than enjoy it in a modest 
way. He wants to appear everywhere as a prosperous and sub- 
stantial person, and therefore has a decided tendency to live 
beyond his means. Extravagance is, therefore, a great national 
trait. Everything, whether large or small, is done with a free 
hand. In the kitchen of the ordinary man much is thrown av^ay 
which the European carefully saves for his nourishment; and in 
the kitchens of the government officials a hundred thousand 
cooks are at work, as if there were every day a banquet. Even 
when the American economizes he is fundamentally extravagant. 
His favourite way of saving is by buying a life insurance policy; 
but when one sees how many millions of dollars such companies 
spend in advertising and otherwise competing with one another, 
and what prodigious amounts they take in, one cannot doubt 



SELF-INITIATIVE 253 

that they also are a means of saving for wealthy men, who, after 
after all, do not know what real economy is. 

If the whole outward life is pervaded by this pioneer spirit of 
self-initiative, there is another factor which is not to be overlooked; 
it is the neglect of the aesthetic. Any one who loves beauty 
desires to see his ideal realized at the present moment, and the 
present itself becomes for him expressive of the past, while the 
man whose only desire is to be active as an economic factor 
looks only into the future. The bare present is almost valueless, 
since it is that which has to be overcome; it is the material which 
the enterprising spirit has to shape creatively into something 
else. The pioneer cannot be interested in the present as a 
survivor of the past; it shows to him only that which is to do, and 
admonishes his soul to prepare for new achievement. On 
Italian soil one's eye is offended by every false note in the general 
harmony. The present, in which the past still lives, fills one's con- 
sciousness, and the repose of aesthetic contemplation is the chief 
emotion. But a man who rushes from one undertaking to 
another seeks no unity or harmony in the present; his retina is 
not sensitive to ugliness, because his eye is forever peering into 
the future; and if the present were to be complete and finished, 
the enterprising spirit would regret such perfection and account 
it a loss — a restriction of his freedom, an end to his creation. It 
would mean mere pleasure and not action. In this sense the 
Americj^n expresses his pure idealism in speaking of the "glory 
of the imperfect. " 

The Italian is not to be disparaged for being unlike the Ameri- 
can and for letting his eye rest on pleasing contours without 
asking what new undertakings could be devised to make reality 
express his own spirit of initiative. One must also not blame 
the American if he does not scrutinize his vistas with the eye of a 
Florentine, if he is not offended by the ugly remains of his nation's 
past, the scaffolding of civilization, or if he looks at them with 
pride, noting how restlessly his countrymen have stuck to their 
work in order to shape a future from the past. In fact, one can 
hardly take a step in the New World without everywhere coming 
on some crying contrast between mighty growth and the oppressive 
remains of outgrown or abortive activities. As one comes down 
the monumental steps of the Metropolitan Museum, in which 



2S4 THE AMERICANS 

priceless treasures of art are collected, one sees in front of one a 
wretched, tumbled-down hut where sundry refreshments are sold, 
on a dirty building-lot with a broken fence. It looks as if it had 
been brought from the annual county fair of some remote dis- 
trict into this wealthiest street of the world. 

Of course such a thing is strikingly offensive, but it disturbs 
only a person who is not looking with the eye of the American, 
who can therefore not understand the true ethical meaning of 
American culture, its earnest looking forward into the future. 
If the incomplete past no longer met the American's eye in all 
its poverty and ugliness and smallness, he would have lost the 
main-spring of his life. That which is complete does not in- 
terest him, while that which he can still work on wholly fascinates 
and absorbs him. It is true here, as in every department of 
American life, that superficial polish would be only an imitation 
of success; friction and that which is aesthetically disorganized, 
but for this very reason ethically valuable, give to his life its 
significance and to his industry its incomparable progress. 



CHAPTER TWELVE 
The Economic Rise 

/NTROITEy nam et hie dii sunt — here, too, the gods are on 
their throne. The exploiting of the country, the opening of 
the mines, the building of factories and railroads, trade and 
barter, are not in question here as the mere means of livelihood, 
but as a spontaneous and creative labour, which is undertaken 
specifically in the interests of progress. In this confession 
of faith we have found the significance of American industrial 
life, in the spirit of self-initiative its greatest strength. Only 
such men as desire to take part in the economic era of creation, 
to meet their neighbours openly and trustingly and to rely on their 
spoken word, in short, to believe in the intrinsic worth of industry 
— only such men can weave the wonderful fabric of New World 
industry. A race of men carrying on commerce merely in order 
to live, feeling no idealism impelling them to industry, would 
never, even in this richly-endowed America, have produced such 
tangible results or gained such power. 

Nevertheless, the country itself must not be forgotten by reason 
of its inhabitants. It was the original inducement to the inhab- 
itants to turn so industriously to the spade and plough. Where the 
spade has dug, it has brought up silver and gold, coal and iron; 
and where the plough has turned, it has evoked a mammoth growth 
of wheat and corn. Seas and rivers, bays and mountains have 
produced a happy configuration of the land and pointed out 
the routes for traffic; oil-wells have flown freely, and the water- 
power is inexhaustible; the supply of fish and fowl, the harvests 
of tropical fruits and of cotton have been sufficient to supply 
the world. And all this was commenced by nature, before the 
first American set his foot on the continent. 

And while it was the lavish hand of nature which first brought 



256 THE AMERICANS 

prosperity to the inhabitants, this prosperity became, in its turn, 
a new stimulus to the economic exploitation of further natural 
resources. It provided the capital for new undertakings; it also 
helped on the extraordinary growth of economic demand, it 
made the farmer and the artisan the best patrons of thriving 
industries, and made the economic circulatory system pulsate 
with increasing strength through the national organization. 

There are, besides the purely economic conditions, certain 
political and administrative ones. American history has de- 
veloped in a free atmosphere such as cannot be had in countries 
with ancient traditions, and which, even in the New World, at 
least in the eastern part of it, is disappearing day by day. Of 
course, such elbow-room has not been an unqualified blessing. 
It has been attended by evils and has made sacrifices necessary. 
But these have always touched the individual. The community 
has gained by the freedom of economic conditions. For instance, 
railroads, such as were built through the whole West during the 
pioneer years of America, would not be permitted for a moment 
by a German government. Such flimsy bridges, such rough- 
and-ready road-beds, such inadequate precautions on crossings 
were everywhere a serious menace; but those who were injured 
were soon forgotten, while the economic blessings of the new 
railroads which transported hundreds of thousands of people 
into uninhabited regions, and left them to gather the treasure 
of the soil, continued. They could never have been built if 
people had waited until they were able to construct by approved 
methods. After the great pioneer railroads had accomplished 
their mission, the time came when they were replaced by better 
structures. And they have been built over many times, until 
to-day the traffic is suflftciently safe. It still belongs, in a way, 
to the confession of faith of this religion of self-initiative that 
each man shall be free to risk not only his property, but also his 
own life, for the sake of enterprise. No board of commissioners 
may interfere to tell an American not to skirt a precipice. 

Such instances of complete freedom, where life and limb are 
unsafe, disappear day by day. Guide-posts are put at every 
railroad crossing, and civil authorities take more and more interest 
in safety appliances for factories and in the security of city build- 
ings; in fact, hygienic regulations in some Eastern cities to-day go 



ECONOMIC RISE 257 

even further than they go in Germany. Nevertheless, in such mat- 
ters as involve not dangers, but merely traditions or preferences, 
a large amount of democratic freedom can still be had in the 
New World. Over the broad prairies there are no signs law- 
fully warning persons to turn to the right and not to walk on the 
grass. The American himself not only regards this country 
as the land of "unlimited possibilities," but more specially he 
regards the European Continent as the country of impossible 
limitations. Bureaucracy is to his mind the worst enemy of 
industrial life, because it everywhere provides the most trivial 
obstacles to that spirit of adventure and daring which seeks 
to press on into the future; and in the end it is sure to bring all 
enterprise to a standstill. It is important for this freedom that 
the whole economic legislation is regulated, first of all, not by 
the Union, but by the several states, and that thus every variety 
of industrial life going on in any state shall be so well repre- 
sented that every attempt to bring up artificial restraints shall be 
nipped in the bud. 

To this negative factor is to be added a positive one. Every 
one knows that the mighty growth of the American industry 
and of its whole commercial life would not have been possible 
without the carefully adapted protective tariff of recent years. 
The Dingley and the McKinley tariflF laws have not, of course, 
produced that great advance, but they have powerfully aided 
it. And at the same time enormous sums have been derived 
therefrom and expended by the government in improving the 
water-ways and harbours. The government has spent vast sums 
in helping agriculture, and done much to irrigate the arid portions 
of the country. Economic problems in general receive great 
consideration in Washington and in every state capital. Besides 
such general political activities, there are more special ones. The 
nation's agriculture, for instance, is tremendously assisted by 
scientific researches, which are carried on by the Department 
of Agriculture. The army of American consuls is incomparably 
alert in seeking out favourable openings for American trade 
with other nations, and the consular reports are distributed 
promptly and free of charge from Washington to all parts of the 
country. 

The political attitude of the nation works in still another way 



2s8 THE AMERICANS 

to favour general prosperity. The country has a unified organ- 
ization which favours all economic enterprises. Although seven- 
teen times as large as Germany, the country is nevertheless one 
splendid unit without internal customs barriers, under one law, 
and free from sectional distrusts. For, wherever commercial in- 
tercourse goes on between different states, the common federal 
law is in force. 

Perhaps even more important than the national unity is the 
democratic equality throughout the population. However diverse 
these eighty million people may be, they form a homogeneous 
purchasing public. Every new style or fashion spreads like 
wild-fire from New York to San Francisco, and in spite of their 
differences, the day-labourer and the millionaire both have a cer- 
tain similarity of tastes and requirements, so that the industrial 
producer and the distributor find it easy to make and keep 
in stock all articles which are called for. Instead of the freakish 
and fanciful demand which makes the European industrial life 
so difficult, everybody in America wants the same pattern as his 
neighbour, perhaps a little finer and better, but still the same gen- 
eral thing. And this brings it about that producers can manu- 
facture in large quantities, and wholesale production and the 
ease of placing wares on the market encourage again the uni- 
formity of taste and requirement, and help on the popular ten- 
dency toward mutual imitation throughout the country. 

But now, instead of recounting the conditions which have 
helped to make the story, we must narrate the story itself. The 
German can listen to it with pleasure, since it is about one of 
Germany's best patrons — a nation which always buys from Ger- 
many in proportion to its own prosperity, and one whose adver- 
sity would bring misfortune to Germany. The story can be 
most quickly told in figures, as is the favourite American way; 
for, if the American has a special mania, it is to heap up all 
sorts of statistics. 

We shall best study the statistical variations through long 
intervals of time, in order not to be led astray by temporary 
fluctuations. When, a few years ago, an industrial and financial 
relapse had set in in Germany, and England was suffering from 
the war in the Transvaal, while America was undertaking a 
gigantic work of organization which promised to have marvellous 



ECONOMIC RISE 259 

results, the United States suddenly appeared as the economic 
mistress of the world, to the astonishment and apprehension of all 
other countries. Soon after that German trade and industry 
began to revive and England recovered itself, while in America 
industrial extravagance and financial inflation were bringing 
about their necessary evil consequences. Then the public opin- 
ion of other countries swung at once to the other extreme, as 
if America's success had been entirely spurious. People sud- 
denly turned about and believed that the time of American 
prosperity was over, rejoiced with ghoulish glee over the weak- 
ness of the enemy, despised his foolhardiness, and gossiped about 
his industrial leaders. But it was only in other countries that 
men like Schwab, the president of the Steel Trust, had been looked 
on as a Napoleon of industry; and when he was not able to retain 
his position, European papers were as pleased as if a Napoleonic 
army had been wiped out. Such insignificant events of the day 
are able to distort the judgment of great movements; picturesque 
mishaps strike the attention, and are taken to indicate great 
movements. 

The actual advance in economic life of the United States was 
not such a sudden thing as it seemed to nervous Europe, nor 
was there any reverse such as Europe delighted to record. To 
be sure, America has passed through several great crises; but 
her history is nevertheless one of steady, even and healthy de- 
velopment in economic organization. The American himself 
is inclined to believe that severe crises are not to be feared any 
more; but however that may be, the long-predicted downfall has 
not come to-day, and is not even in sight. The general progress 
persists, and the decline in stock-market securities, which has 
been here and there abroad the signal for alarm, is itself a part 
of the sound development. When one looks at the whole rise 
one realizes that the young nation's development has been 
great and powerful, and such as was never before known in the 
history of civilization. Figures will show this better than ad- 
jectives. What now do the United States produce ? The wheat 
of the country amounted, in the year 1850, to only 100 million 
bushels; in 1870 to 235 millions; 522 millions in 1900; 637 in 
1903. The corn harvest was 592 millions in 1850; 1,094 in 1870; 
2,105 in 1900; 2,244 ^" 1903- There were 52 million pounds of 



26o THE AMERICANS 

wool in 1850; 162 in 1870; 288 in 1900; 316 in 1902. But cotton 
is " king." In 1850 the cotton harvest amounted to 2.3 million 
bales; 3.1 millions in 1870; 9.4 in 1900 and 10.7 in 1903; 
1 10,000 tons of sugar were produced in 1 850 and last year 3 10,000 
tons. The dreaded American petroleum was not flowing in 1850. 
It appears in the statistical tables of 1859 in the modest quantity 
of 8,400 gallons; in 1870 there were 220 million gallons; in 1900, 
2,661 million, and in 1903 there were 3,707 million gallons. The 
coal output of the country began in 1820 with 365 tons and 
amounted in 1850 to 3 million tons; in 1870 to 33 million; in 
1900 to 240 million; in 1902 to 269 million tons. In the middle of 
the last century 563,000 tons of iron ore were mined; 1.6 million 
tons in 1870; 13.7 in 1900, and 18 million in 1903. The manufac- 
ture of steel began in 1867 with 19,000 tons and in 1870 amounted 
to 68,000 tons, to lo.i million tons in 1900; 14.9 millions in 1902. 
Of copper, 650 tons were mined in 1850; 12,000 tons in 1870; 
270,000 tons in 1900; and 294,000 tons in 1902. The silver 
production in the middle of the century was estimated at ^50,000; 
in 1870 at ^16,000,000, and in 1900 at $74,000,000; in the 
last three years it has gone back to $71,000,000. The high- 
est point was reached in 1892, with $82,000,000. On the 
other hand, the production of gold has grown steadily in the 
last twenty years, although it had reached its first high point 
back in the fifties. In the year 1853, $65,000,000 worth of 
gold was produced. The amount decreased slowly but steadily 
to $30,000,000 in the year 1883, and has since risen almost 
steadily until in 1903 it amounted to $74,000,000. The total out- 
put of minerals was valued at $218,000,000 in 1870, and $1,063,- 
000,000 in 1900. 

This steady growth of natural products is repeated in the 
agricultural and industrial spheres. The number of farms was 
given at 1.4 million in the middle of the last century, with the 
total value of $3,967,000,000; in 1870 there were 2.6 million 
farms valued at $8,944,000,000; and in 1900 there were 5.7 mil- 
lion, valued at $20,514,000,000. In 1870, 5.9 million people 
engaged in agriculture; 10.4 million in 1900. The total value 
of agricultural products amounted, in 1870, to $1,958,000,000, 
and in 1900 to $3,764,000,000. All domestic animals — cattle, 
horses, mules, sheep and pigs — amounted in 1850 to $544,000,000; 



ECONOMIC RISE 261 

in 1870 to ^1,822,000,000; in 1900 to ;^2,228,ooo,ooo, and in 
1903 to ;^3, 102,000,000. 

The greatest growth, however, is shown in industry. In 1850 
there were 123,000 industrial plants with 957,000 employees, 
paying wages of 1^236,000,000, and with an output worth 
^1,019,000,000. In 1870 there were 252,000 factories, with 2 
million workmen, paying 1^775,000,000 in wages, and with an 
output worth ^4,232,000,000; in 1890 there were 3,550,000 
factories, 4.7 million workmen, a salary list of 1^2,283,000,000, 
and a product worth ^9,372,000,000. In 1900 there were 512,000 
factories, with 5.7 million workmen, a pay-roll of 1^273,500,000, 
and an output worth ^13,039,000,000. Statistics here cannot 
be brought up to the present time, since a careful industrial 
census is made only every ten years; but this glance over the half 
century shows at once that there has been a very steady increase, 
and that it is no mushroom growth due to the recently enacted 
protective tariffs. 

The economic rise of the nation is well reflected in its foreign 
commerce. If we disregard the imports and exports of precious 
metals, the international commerce of the United States shows 
a total import in the year 1903 of ^^1,025, 719,237, and a total 
export of ^1,420,141,679. We must analyze these two figures 
in several ways, and compare them with similar figures in the 
past. In one way they show a decrease, since in the year 1903 
the exports exceeded the imports by over 394 millions, but in the 
preceding year by 477 millions. This unfavourable change is 
not from any decrease in exports, but from a remarkable increase 
in imports; in fact, the exports were 38 millions more than during 
the previous year, while the imports were 122 millions more. 

Thus, in the year 1903, the total foreign trade of the United 
States exceeded that of all previous years, and reached the aston- 
ishing figure of ^2,445,000,000. Although before the year 
1900 the total trade was less than two billions, it reached the 
sum of one billion as early as the year 1872; exports and imports 
together amounted in 1830 to 134 millions; in 1850 to 317 mil- 
lions; in i860 to 687 millions; in 1870 to 828 millions; in 1880 
to 1,503 millions; in 1890 to 1,647 millions, and in 1900 to 2,244 
millions. During this period the balance of trade shifted fre- 
quently. In 1800, for instance, there was an import balance 



262 THE AMERICANS 

of 21 millions, and similarly in the decades ending in 1810, 
1820, and 1830. In the decade which ended in 1840 there was 
an average export balance of 29 millions. The tables turned in 
the next decade ending in the year 1850, when there was an 
average import balance of 29 millions; in the decade ending 
i860, of 20 millions, and in the following decade, of 43 millions. 
But then the exports suddenly increased, and have exceeded the 
imports for the last twenty-five years. In 1880 the imports were 
667 millions, and the exports 835 millions; in 1890 the imports 
were 789 millions, and the exports 857 millions; in 1900 the im- 
ports were 849 millions, and the exports 1,394 millions; in 1901 
the imports were 823, and the exports 1,487; in 1902 the imports 
were 903, and the exports 1,381; and in 1903, as given above, the 
imports were 1,025, ^"^ ^^^ exports 1,420 millions. 

Let us now look at the American imports more closely. Let- 
ting all our figures represent million dollars, we learn that during 
the last year imports of bread-stuffs and live animals were 212; 
of raw materials 383; of half-finished products 97; of manufac- 
tured products 169, and of articles of luxury in general 145. 
The food products imported, which comprise to-day 21 per cent, 
of all imports, comprised 31 per cent, in 1880; and at that time 
the necessary manufactured articles were also a larger proportion 
of the whole, being then 20 per cent, against 16 per cent, to-day. 
On the other hand, raw materials, which were then 25 per cent., 
are to-day 38 per cent., and articles of luxury have increased 
from 10 to 14 per cent, of the total imports. Of the half-manu- 
factured products imported, the most important were the chem- 
icals, valued at 38 millions; then come wooden wares worth 11, oil 
worth 10, iron worth 8, skins and leather worth 5 millions. Of raw 
materials the most valuable were skins and furs, which amounted 
last year to 58 millions; raw silk was next, with 50; vegetable fibres, 
such as hemp, 34; rubber 32, iron and steel 30. This last figure 
is an exceptional one, and is due to the fact that during the year 
the American steel industries were taxed to their utmost by 
consumers' demands. In the year 1902 the iron and steel imports 
were only 9, and in 1901 only 3 millions. The imports of raw 
chemicals amounted to 23 millions, and tin the same; wool 21, 
copper 20; wood 11, and cotton 11. 

The exports, arranged according to the sources of production, 



ECONOMIC RISE 263 

amounted, last year, to 873 million dollars' worth of agricultural 
products, 407 of factory products, 57 of products of the forest, 
39 of mines, and 7 from fisheries. Of the remainder, 6 millions 
were from other domestic sources, and 27 had come from other 
countries. The agricultural exports reached their highest point 
in 1 90 1, when they amounted to 943, and also the export of 
manufactured articles is now 3.4 less than in 1901 and 26 less 
than in 1900. But the statistics of manufactures show suffi- 
ciently that there has been no decrease in output, but merely 
that the home consumption has increased. Apart from these 
accidental fluctuations of the past three years, the exports have 
steadily increased. In 1800 the agricultural exports were 25 
millions; the industrial 2; in 1850 the former were 108, the 
latter 17; in 1880 they were 685 and 102 respectively, and in 
1900 they were 835 and 433. 

If we look at the foreign trade with regard to the countries 
traded with, we shall find Europe first in both exports and imports. 
In the year 1903 the imports from Europe to the United States 
were 547, the exports to Europe 1029; the imports from Canada 
and Mexico were 189, and the exports thereto 215. From 
South America the imports were 107, the exports 41; from Asia 
the imports were 147, the exports 58; from Australia they were 
21 and 37, and from Africa 12 and 38. 

The trade balances with individual countries in Europe were 
as follows: England bought from the United States 523 million 
dollars' worth, and sold the value of 180; then comes Germany, 
which bought 1 74 and sold in; France bought only 70 and sold 87; 
Austria bought 6 and sold 10; Russia bought 7 and sold the same 
amount. After England and Germany the best purchaser 
was Canada, which imported from the United States 123 and 
exported thereto 54. Germany imports more from the United 
States than from any other country. Germany imports very much 
less from Russia, and still less from Austria and Great Britain. 
Among the countries to which Germany exports her wares the 
United States has third place, England and Austria having the 
first and second. America imports from Germany firstly drugs 
and dye-stuffs, then manufactured cotton, silk, and iron goods, 
books, pictures, and works of art, clay ware, china, lithographs, 
toys, etc. No other class amounts to more than 10 million marks. 



264. THE AMERICANS 

There is a steady increase in almost every class, and the total 
imports from Germany were 17 per cent, larger last year than 
during the year previous; 71 per cent, more than in 1898; 138 per 
cent, more than in 1880; 198 per cent, more than in 1875, and 
343 per cent, more than in 1870. 

The principal export of the United States to Germany is cot- 
ton. Ten years ago the amount exported was 34 million dollars' 
worth; in I90i,it was 76; in the following year only 70, but in the 
year 1903, 84, the amount exported in that year being 957,000,000 
pounds. The exports of wheat to Germany amounted in 1896 
to only 0.608 million dollars; in the following year to 1.9; in the 
next year to 3.1; in 1899 ^° 7-^' ^"^ ^" i()02 to 14.9; but in 1903 
to only I I.I. The exports of corn fluctuate still more widely. 
In the year 1901 Germany bought 17 millions, in 1903 only 6.6. 
The exportation of petroleum reached its largest figure in 1900, 
with 8 millions, and in 1893 was 6.3. 

Enough of these dry figures. They would look still more strik- 
ing if compared with the statistics of other countries. More 
wheat grows in the United States than in any other country, and 
more corn than in all the other countries put together; more 
cattle and hogs are slaughtered than in any other country, and 
three-fourths of the world's cotton harvest is grown in the 
United States. No other country mines so much coal, petroleum, 
iron, copper, and lead, or produces so much leather or charcoal. 
In short, the most important articles entering into manufactures 
are more plentiful than in any other country of the world. But 
even on looking over these figures of international trade, one does 
not get so adequate an impression of the immense economic 
activity as by actually seeing the wheels of this great machine 
in motion. One must see the power stations at Niagara, the steel 
works of Pittsburg, the slaughter-houses of Chicago, the textile 
factories of New England, the printing-presses of New York, the 
watch factories of Massachusetts and Illinois, the grain-elevators 
of BuflFalo, the mills of Minneapolis, the locomotive and ship works 
near Philadelphia, and the water front of New York City, in order 
to understand the tremendous forces which are constantly at work. 

A single factory turns out 1,500 locomotives every year. A 
Chicago factory which makes harvesting machinery covers 
140 acres, employs 24,000 men, and has made two million ma- 



ECONOMIC RISE 265 

chines which are now in use. It has fifty ships to bring its wood and 
iron, and every day loads a hundred freight cars with its finished 
products. And enterprise on this large scale is found not merely 
in staple articles, but in more trivial wares. It is a familiar fact 
that in Germany the large department stores make very slow 
progress against small shops, while in America the great shops 
meet at once with popular favour. Their huge advertisements 
in newspapers and magazines vie with their shop windows in 
attracting trade. It is nothing uncommon for the manufacturer 
of a breakfast food or some chemical preparation to spend over 
a million dollars a year for humorous advertisements. In the 
Ladies' Home Journal one insertion on the advertising pages 
costs six dollars per line, and the lines are short. A short time ago 
a soap concern leased the back outside cover of a magazine 
for a period of time and paid 1^150,000 therefor. 

More impressive, however, than anything that the traveller is 
able to see to-day is the comparison with what existed yesterday. 
Our figures have very well shown that the speed of development 
has been rapid everywhere and sometimes almost explosive. 
A typical example of this is found in agricultural machinery. The 
manner of tilling the ground was wholly revolutionized in 1870, 
when the first ploughing-machine was offered for sale to the Ameri- 
can farmer. Since then improvements have been made contin- 
ually, until to-day every farmer rides on his machines; and the 
steam-plough, which sows and harrows at the same time, has 
reduced the amount of time spent on these processes to one- 
fifteenth of what it formerly was, and the cost of every sheaf of 
wheat to one-quarter. The machines of to-day sow and fer- 
tilize at the same time, and place the seeds at just the desired 
depth beneath the surface. There are other machines which 
take the corn from the cob, at the same time cutting up the 
cobs, and turn out a bushel of corn in a minute, for which a good 
labourer used to take two hours. 

The threshing-flail was abandoned long ago, and the com- 
bined mowing and threshing machine is perhaps the most clever 
invention of all. It cuts the kernels from the stalk, threshes and 
winnows them, and packs them in bags; and all this as quickly as 
the horses are able to travel down the field. The machines which 
separate the cotton from the cotton seed are the only thing that 



266 THE AMERICANS 

makes it possible to gather a harvest of ten million bales. In 
former times it took a person about ten hours to remove the seeds 
from a pound and a half of cotton. The machine cleans 7,000 
pounds in the same time. 

In just the same way the inventive genius of the American has 
everywhere increased the output of his factories. His chief aim 
is to save labour, and hence to devise automatic processes 
wherever they are possible, so that turning a crank or touch- 
ing a lever shall accomplish as much as hard work once accom- 
plished. This continual process of invention and improve- 
ment, and the fertile resourcefulness of every workman and 
capitalist, their readiness to introduce every improvement with- 
out delay and without regard to expense, have contributed more 
to the enormous economic progress than all the protective tariff 
or even than the natural resources of the soil itself. 

Extreme jingoes see in this huge growth only the beginning 
of something yet to come, and in their dreams imagine a day 
when America shall rule the markets of the world. But no one 
should be deceived by such ideas. The thoughtful American 
knows very well that, for instance, the great increase of his ex- 
port trade has by no means overcome all obstacles. He knows 
that American wages are high, and that prosperity makes them 
more so, because the American workman is better able than the 
European to demand his share of all profits. Also the thought- 
ful American does not expect to gain the European market by 
"dumping" his wares. In the apprehension of dull times he 
may snatch an expedient for getting rid of accumulations which 
the home market will not take off his hands. In ordinary times 
industry will not do this, because it knows the demoralizing 
effect produced on the home country when it is known that the 
manufacturer is selling more cheaply abroad than at home. The 
American is afraid of demoralizing the domestic market more 
than anything else; since, owing to the strong tendency toward 
industrial imitation, any economic depression spreads rapidly, 
and can easily cause a general collapse of prices. Even the 
elaborate pains taken to replace human labour in the American 
labour-saving machines are often quite made up for by the thought- 
less waste of by-products and by the general high-handedness 
of conducting business. 



ECONOMIC RISE 267 

While America has a tremendous advantage in the fact that 
coal can be readily brought to the industrial centres, and that 
the products can be delivered cheaply throughout the country, it 
stands under the disadvantage that most of its exports are shipped 
in foreign bottoms, so that the freight charges go to foreigners; 
for the American merchant-marine is wholly inadequate to the 
needs of American trade. If America is strong by reason of 
protective tariff, England intends, perhaps, to remind her 
daughter country that the American game can be played by two. 
Protection is no monopoly. While the natural wealth of this coun- 
try is inexhaustible, the American knows that the largest profits 
will go to the country which manufactures them; and while the 
American is energetic and intelligent in getting a foothold in 
foreign markets, he finds that other nations also have some 
counterbalancing virtues which he neither has nor can get. 
First of these is the patience to study foreign requirements, 
and then the ways of guarding against wastefulness. He has 
one incomparable advantage, as we have seen — his economic 
idealism, his belief in the intrinsic value of economic progress, his 
striving to be economically creative in order to satisfy the rest- 
lessness which is in him. The economic drawback of this point 
of view is not far to seek. The spirit of individual initiative 
awakens in the workman the demand for equal rights, and in- 
tensifies the fight between capital and labour more than in any 
other country, and puts such chains on industry as are spared to 
America's competitors in the markets of the world. In short, the 
thoughtful American knows very well that the markets of the world 
are to be won for his products only one by one, and that he will 
meet competitors who are his equals; that there will be difficul- 
ties on difficulties, and that the home market from time to time 
will make heavy imports necessary. He knows that he cannot 
hope simply to overthrow the industry of all Europe, nor to make 
the industrial captains of the New World dictators of the earth. 

That which he does expect, however, is sure to happen; name- 
ly, that the progress of America will be in the future as steady as 
it has been in the past. The harvests of all the states will not 
always prosper, nor speculators be always contented with their 
profits, but the business life of the nation as a whole, unless all 
signs fail, need fear no setbacks or serious panics. 



268 THE AMERICANS 

The United States have gone through six severe crises — in i8 14, 
1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893. There is much to indicate that 
the trite idea of the rhythmical recurrence of crises will be given 
up henceforth. And although just now, after years of great ex- 
pansion, contraction is setting in, still the times are not to be com- 
pared with preceding crises, and particularly not with the bitter 
days of 1893. Let us examine what happened in that year. The 
unhappy experiences of the early nineties resulted naturally from 
an abnormal expansion of credit. Five or six years of prosperity 
had gone before, and therewith every industry which contributed 
to personal gratification was stimulated to excess. An un- 
reasonable craze for building went over the country, and real 
estate rose constantly. But the country had not developed 
economically in other directions to a corresponding degree. 
Too many superfluous undertakings had been started, and 
houses and lands were everywhere heavily mortgaged. As early 
as 1890 things began to tremble, and three years later the final 
crash came. More than 15,000 bankruptcies followed one 
another during that year, of which the total obligations were 
;^350,ooo,ooo; and in the three following years matters were 
hardly any better. Everything was paralyzed. The farmer 
was in debt, the artisan out of employment, the miner had to be 
fed by charity, and since the purchasing power of millions of people 
was destroyed, there was no one to support industry and trade. 
It was a veritable economic collapse, with all the symptoms of 
danger; but the organism recovered without the aid of a phy- 
sician, by its own healthy reaction, and in such wise that a 
relapse will hardly take place in the future. 

The catastrophe prepared for the return to strength by destroy- 
ing many business concerns which were not fit to survive, and 
leaving only the strongest in the field. But this result is, of 
course, not a lasting one, because in prosperous years all sorts 
of poor businesses start up again; good years stimulate super- 
fluous production. The permanent result was the lesson 
which industry learned, in prudence and economy. There is 
very much in this direction still to be learned, yet the last crisis 
accomplished a great deal. For instance, in the stock-yards a 
single company had formerly thrown away annually portions 
of the animals which would have yielded six million pounds of 



ECONOMIC RISE zOg 

lime, 30 million pounds of fat, and 105 million pounds of fer- 
tilizer, and a few years later the total dividends of that company 
were paid by the by-products which had been thrown away a 
short time before. The same thing has happened in the mines 
and oil-wells, in the fields and in the forests. 

Owing to the special gift which the American has for in- 
vention, this period brought out a great number of devices 
looking toward economy. In iron factories and coal mines, and 
in a thousand places where industry was busy, expenses were cut 
down and profits were increased, more labour-saving devices were 
invented, and all sorts* of processes were accomplished by ingen- 
ious machines. American industry derived advantages from 
this period in which the nation had to be economical, which it 
will never outlive. 

Although such great economy helps out in bad times, it does 
not in itself revive trade. It is difficult to say where and how the 
revival set in, since the most diverse factors must have been 
at work. But the formation of the great trusts was not a cause 
of such revival, but merely a symptom of it. The real com- 
mencement seems to have been the great harvest which the 
country enjoyed in the fall of 1897. When wheat was scarce in 
Russia and India, and therefore throughout the world, America 
reaped the largest harvest in years, and despite the enormous 
quantity the European demand carried prices up from week to 
week. The farmer who in 1894 had received forty-nine cents 
for each bushel of wheat, now received eighty-one cents, and at 
the same time had his bins full. Of course there could be only 
one result. The farmers who had been economizing and al- 
most impoverished for several years became very prosperous, 
and called for all sorts of things which they had had to go without 
— better wagons and farming implements, better clothing, and 
better food. In a country where agriculture is so important, 
this means prosperity for all industries. 

The shops in every village were busy once more, and the 
large industries again started up one by one. The effect on the 
railroads was still more important. The good times had stim- 
ulated the building of many competing lines of railroad, which 
were very good for the country, but less profitable to their owners. 
The lean years just passed had brought great demoralization to 



270 THE AMERICANS 

these lines. One railroad after another had gone into a re- 
ceiver's hands, and the service was crippled. Every possible 
cent was saved and coaches and road-beds were sparingly re- 
newed. Now came an enormous freight demand to carry the 
great harvest to market, and to serve the newly revived indus- 
tries. The railroads rapidly recovered; their service was restored. 
The railroads brought prosperity once more to the iron and 
steel industries; new rails and ties were absolutely necessary, 
and the steel industry started forward and set everything else in 
motion with it. Artisans became prosperous again and further 
stimulated the industries which they patronized; coal was wanted 
everywhere, and so the mines awakened to new life. 

Then the Spanish War was begun and brought to the nation 
an unexpected amount of self-confidence, which quickened once 
more its industrial activity. Such were the internal conditions 
which made for growth, and the external conditions were equally 
favourable. In 1898 America harvested 675 million bushels of 
wheat, and the enormous quantity of 1 1 million bales of cotton. 
By chance, moreover, the production of gold increased to 
^64,000,000; and this, with the enormous sums which foreign 
countries paid for American grain, considerably increased the 
money in circulation. This was the time for the stock market 
to enjoy a similar boom. During the crisis it had nervously with- 
held from activity and looked with distrust on the West and South, 
which were now being prospered by great harvests. Everything 
had formerly been mortgaged in those regions, and from the 
despair of the Western farmer the ill-advised silver schemes had 
arisen to fill the eastern part of the country with anxiety. But now 
the election of McKinley had assured the safety of the currency; 
the silver issue was laid low; the debts of the Western farmer had 
been paid within a few years by magnificent crops, and the 
Western States had come into a healthy state of prosperity. Now 
the stock markets could pluck up courage. In the stock market 
of New York in the year 1894 only 49,000,000 shares were bought 
and sold. In 1897 the market began to recover, and 77,000,000 
shares were exchanged; in 1898 there were 112,000,000, and 
in 1899, 175,000,000 shares. 

In the winter of 1898-99 the formation of trusts commenced in 
good earnest, and this was a glad day for the stock markets. 



ECONOMIC RISE 271 

Large amounts of capital which had been only cautiously of- 
fered now sought investment, and since the market quotations 
could rise more quickly than industries could grow, it was a 
favourable time for reorganizing industry and making great 
combinations with a capital proportioned to the happy industrial 
outlook. In the State of New Jersey alone, a state which spe- 
cially invited all such organizations by means of its very lenient 
laws of incorporation, hundreds of such combinations were in- 
corporated with a total nominal capital of over ^4,000,000,000. To 
be sure, in just this connection there was very soon a recoil. In 
December of 1899, a great many of these watered-stock issues 
collapsed, although the industries themselves went on unharmed. 
But this activity of the stock market, in spite of its fluctuating 
quotations, was of benefit to industrial life. 

Meanwhile wealth in town and country increased, owing to 
the general activity of all factors. In a few years the number of 
savings-banks accounts was doubled, and railroads had only the 
one complaint — that they could not get enough cars to carryall 
the wheat, corn, wood, iron, cattle, coal, cotton, and manufactures 
offered for transportation. In two years the number of money- 
orders sent through the post-offices increased by 7 millions, and the 
number of letters and packages by 361 millions. Now, too, came 
a time of magnificent philanthropy; private endowments for edu- 
cation and art increased in one year more than $50,000,000. 

Along with all this came an increase in foreign trade; here, too, 
bad times had prepared the way. When the home market was 
prostrate, industry had sought with great energy to get a footing 
in foreign markets; and by low prices, assiduous study of foreign 
demands, and good workmanship, it had slowly conquered one 
field after another, so that when good times came there was a 
splendid foundation built for a foreign commerce. America 
sold bicycles and agricultural machinery, boots, cotton cloth, 
paper, and watches, and eventually rails, bridges, and loco- 
motives in quantities which would never have been thought of 
before the panic. And the country became at the same time 
more than ever independent of European industry. In 1890 
America bought $357,000,000 of foreign manufactures and sold 
of her own only $151,000,000. In 1899 its purchases were 
$100,000,000 less and its exports nearly $200,000,000 more. 



2^2 THE AMERICANS 

And at the same time, owing to the tremendous crops, the 
total export of native products reached the sum of $1,233,000,000, 
and therewith the United States had for the first time reached 
the highest place among the exporting countries of the world — a 
position which had formerly belonged to Great Britain. The 
trade balance of the United States, even in the first year of 
prosperity, 1898, brought $615,000,000 into the country. The 
year in which the American Navy, by a rapid succession of 
victories, demonstrated that the nation was politically a world 
power, brought the assurance that it was no less a world power 
commercially. Already the Russian trans-Siberian Railway was 
using American rails, American companies were building bridges 
in India, American cotton goods driving out British competition 
in China, and the movement was still going on. One large 
harvest followed another. 

The wheat harvest in 1901 reached the unprecedented figure 
of 736 million bushels, and in 1902 of 987 millions. In the same 
year there were 670 million bushels of barley, and as many as 
2,523 million bushels of corn. A corn harvest is almost always 
profitable, because it keeps and can easily be stored until the right 
time comes to sell it; and then, too, the farmers are always ready to 
use it for feed, which further helps its price. Corn has done 
more than any other harvest to bring wealth into the West. The 
cotton crop stayed at its ten-million mark, and nearly 70 million 
barrels of petroleum flowed every year. The demands made on 
the railroads increased month by month, until finally last year 
there were weeks in which no freight could be received, because 
the freight yards were full of unloaded cars. And at the head of 
everything moved the iron and steel industries. The larger the 
harvests the more lively was the industry of the country, and the 
more busy the factories and railroads became the more the iron 
industry prospered. The manufacture of iron and steel in- 
creased steadily, and in 1898 amounted to 11.9 million meter- 
tons of pig-iron, and 9 million of steel; in 1900, to 14 of pig-iron 
and 10 of steel; in 1902, to 18 and 15: while the production of 
the entire earth was only 44 and 36 respectively. 

But in spite of this tremendous growth, the prices also rose. 
Railroads which in the spring had made contracts for new rails 
were able a few months later to sell their old rails at prices which 



ECONOMIC RISE 273 

were 25 per cent, higher than the former price of new rails, 
because meanwhile the price of steel had risen enormously. 
If it is true that the iron industry can be taken as an index of 
national prosperity, there is no doubt at all that prosperity was 
here. No city in the country experienced such a growth in its 
banking as Pittsburg, where the banking transactions in 1899 
amounted to ^1,500,000,000. 

This tempestuous expansion in every direction, which lasted 
from 1897 to 1903, is no longer going on. A counter-movement 
has set in again. So many factors are at work that it is hard 
to say where the reaction commenced, although undoubtedly 
the great coal strikes were the first important indication. The 
feverish building activity of the country is very largely over, and 
this decrease has considerably affected the steel industry. Per- 
haps the refusal of bankers further to countenance the financial 
operations of the railroads has been an even more important 
matter. During the years of prosperity the railroads had ob- 
tained credit so easily that the scale of expenditure on most rail- 
roads had become too lavish, and in particular large sums had 
been spent in converting railroad shares into bonds. Now the 
financial wotld began to react and refused to furnish any more 
funds, whereon the railroads, which were among the best patrons 
of the steel industry, had to retrench. And this depressed the 
state of business, and the otherwise somewhat diminished in- 
dustry cut down the freight traffic. Other industries had to suffer 
when the building and iron industries declined. The purchasing 
power of the working-man has decreased somewhat, and general 
industry is a trifle dull. This has affected stock quotations, 
and nervousness in financial circles has been increased by the 
mishaps and miscalculations of well-known operators. This 
has worked back in various directions, and so it is natural that 
pessimists at home and the dear friends of the country abroad have 
predicted a panic. 

But it will not come. The situation has been too largely 
corrected, and the country has learned a lasting lesson from 
previous years. When a collapse came in the early nineties, 
after a time of prosperity and over-expenditure in every sort of 
undertaking, the national situation was in every way different. 
There was a great deal of real weakness, and there were many 



2^4- ^^^ AMERICANS 

unnecessary and unconservative business ventures on foot. 
All this is different to-day. The credit which the railroads at 
that time had overdrawn on had been used to lay thousands of 
miles of tracks where as yet there was no population. During 
the recent years of prosperity, on the contrary, the railroads have 
been extended relatively little, and the expenditures have been 
mainly for improved equipment and service. The railroads have 
been made more efficient and substantial, their indebtedness is 
less, and the considerable contraction of business cannot do them 
serious harm. Indeed, many persons believe that the great 
strain which the boom of the last few years has put on the rail- 
roads has been a decided disadvantage to them. The excessive 
traffic has disturbed regular business, increased the danger from 
accidents, and considerably raised the charges for maintenance. 
In general, the railroads would prefer a normal to an abnormal 
traffic demand. 

The same is true of industry. Such tremendous pressure as 
the last few years have brought cannot be borne without loss. 
The factories were obliged to hire working-men much below the 
average grade of intelligence, and the slight decline of industrial 
demand has made it possible to dismiss the inferior men and to 
keep only the more efficient. Industry itself is to-day like the 
railroads, thoroughly sound and prosperous, and the small 
fluctuations in profits are not nearly so great as the declines in 
market quotations. 

Financial operations and labour are largely independent of each 
other. The output can be undisturbed when the value of shares 
is being wiped out in the market. American stocks do not rep- 
resent the actual value of the industrial plants which have been 
combined to form a trust, but represent in part certain advan- 
tages which it is calculated will accrue from the consolidation of 
business — economies of administration and obviation of com- 
petition. The real economic life will not be damaged if such 
shares, which for the most part have remained in the strong- 
boxes of the very rich, decline from their fictitious values. 
Such fluctuations have always happened, and may happen in the 
very height of prosperity, without doing any harm to industry 
itself. Thus, for instance, in 1898 an enormous over-speculation 
commenced in copper shares. Their price was artificially raised 



ECONOMIC RISE 275 

and raised, and in the summer of 1899 this house built of share 
certificates collapsed, and great was the fall thereof; but the price 
of copper itself was uninfluenced. A pound of copper in the year 
1897 brought only the average price of 1 1 cents; in 1899 ^^^ average 
price was 17 cents, although the copper securities were going 
down steadily. Not only is industry itself on a sound basis, and 
the improvements which it introduced in the last panic are not 
only still in force, but also certain needs have now been met at 
home which formerly were met only by foreign countries; and 
at the same time commerce has been so energetically carried 
into other countries, that there is now a readier outlet than ever 
in case the domestic purchasing power should again be sus- 
pended. 

But there are still more important factors. The first of these 
is the recent and complete independence of this country from 
European capital. Since year after year the exports of the 
United States to Europe have exceeded the imports by hundreds of 
millions of dollars, the debt which Europe so contracted has been 
paid for the most part by returning the industrial and other 
bonds which Europe owned against America. It was this which 
had greatly contributed to the crisis in the early nineties; Europe 
withdrew her capital. In 1892 the United States paid back 
^^500,000,000 of European capital, and to-day very little is left 
to pay. In 1893 the United States exported ^108,000,000 in 
gold, but imported only $22,000,000. In the year 1898 the 
imports of gold to the United States were $105,000,000 more 
than the exports. Last year the balance was still in favour of the 
United States; and it would be impossible to-day, in case of 
any stringency in the money market of the country, for the with- 
drawal of European capital to precipitate a panic. 

Another factor is that the political situation is now certain, 
as it was not at the time of the last panic. The silver schemes 
of the West then filled the country with apprehension, whereas 
to-day there are no such political fears. However the Presi- 
dential election may turn out, there will be no dangerous experi- 
ments tried with the currency; and even if both parties should 
mildly oppose the trusts, the nation nevertheless knows that just 
the formation of these trusts has contributed to the steadiness and 
security of economic prosperity, that it has done away with un- 



2^6 THE AMERICANS 

necessary competition, has brought about an orderly and uniform 
production, and that although the purchasers of watered stocks 
may have been bitten, the purchasers of the finished products have 
suffered little inconvenience. 

Then there are tw^o other factors whose significance for eco- 
nomic solidity cannot be overestimated. The first of these is the 
increasing independence of the agricultural West, and the second 
is the industrial revival of the South. The financial condition 
of the New York Stock Exchange to-day no more represents 
the industrial life of the whole nation, as it did ten years ago. 
The West, which before the panic of 1893 was up to its ears in 
debts owned by the East, is now, by reason of six tremendous 
harvests, prosperous and independent, and its purchasing power 
and business enterprise are no longer affected by the fluctuations 
of Wall Street. Even if the shares of all New Jersey corporations 
should collapse, the nation could continue to buy and sell, pro- 
duce, manufacture, and transport, because the Western agricul- 
tural states would suffer no relapse of prosperity. They have 
paid off their mortgages and laid money by; the farmer has bought 
his daughter a parlour organ, sent his sons to college, and bent 
all his energies to making his West into an economic paradise. 
Migration has once more set in from the Eastern to the Western 
States, while during the poor years it had almost stopped; and 
Western economic influence is asserting itself more and more 
in the political field. 

The same is more or less true of the South. In former times, 
whenever a cotton harvest brought prosperity, the South still 
did not take the trouble to utilize its ample resources outside 
of the plantations. It did not try to mine its coal and iron de- 
posits, nor exploit its forests, nor grow wheat and corn, nor manu- 
facture cotton into cloth, nor the cottonseed into oil. It left all 
this to the North. But during hard times the South has learned 
its lesson, and at the time of the last great revival the whole South 
developed an almost undreamed-of economic activity. The ex- 
ploitation of forests and coal and iron deposits made great strides, 
and the factories turned out articles to the value of $2,000,000,000. 
Cotton is still the staple article of the South, but the bales no longer 
have to be sent to the North to be made into cloth. As early as 
1899 there were 5 million spindles in operation, and the manufac- 



ECONOMIC RISE zyj 

ture of cotton has made the South more independent than any 
number of bales produced for export could have made it. 

This economic independence of one another of large sections 
of the country, and at the same time of European capital, com- 
bined with the large increase of commerce with the whole world, 
the improvement in economic appliances, and a surprising growth 
in technical science and technical instruction, has created a na- 
tional economic situation which is so different from that which 
prevailed in the beginning of the nineties, that there is no analogy 
to justify the pessimist in predicting another such panic. It had to 
come at that time. Industrial forces had suffered a serious disaster 
and had to go back to camp in order to recuperate. Since then 
they have been striding forward, swerving a little now and then, 
it may be, to avoid some obstacle, but they are still marching on as 
they have marched for seven years with firm and steady step, 
and keeping time with the world-power tune which the national 
government is playing. 



CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

The Economic Problems 

WE have aimed to speak of the American as he appears 
in the economic world — of the American in his actual 
economic life and strife — rather than merely of his inani- 
mate manufactures. That is, we have wished specially to show 
what forces have been at work in his soul to keep him thus 
busied with progress. And although we have gone somewhat 
further, in order to trace the economic uplift of the last decades, 
nevertheless we have chiefly aimed merely to show the work- 
ings of his mind and heart — not the economic history of the 
American, but the American as little by little he builds that 
history, has been the point of interest. 

Seen from this point of view, everything which stands in the 
foreground of the actual conflict becomes of secondary interest 
The problems leading to party grievances which are solved now 
one way, now another, and which specially concern different 
portions of society, diff'erent occupations or geographical sec- 
tions, contribute very little to reveal the traits that are common 
to all sections, and that must, therefore, belong to the typical 
American character. If we have given less thought to the po- 
litical problems of the day than to the great enduring principles 
of democracy, we need still less concern ourselves with the dis- 
putes of the moment in the economic field. The problems of 
protection, of industrial organization, of bimetallism, and of 
labour unions are not problems for which a solution can be 
attempted here. 

And nevertheless, we must not pass by all the various con- 
siderations which bear on these questions. We might neglect them 
as problems of American economy; and purely technical matters, 
like bank reform or irrigation, we shall indeed not discuss. But 



SILVER QUESTION zyg 

as problems which profoundly perplex the national mind, exercise 
its best powers, and develop its Americanism, silver, trusts, 
tariff, and labour unions require minuter consideration. The 
life and endeavour of the Americans are not described if their 
passionate interest in such economic difficulties is not taken 
into account; not, once more, as problems which objectively 
influence the developing nation, but as problems which agitate 
the spirit of the American. An exhaustive treatment is, of 
course, out of the question, if for no other reason than that it 
would distort our perspective of things. Had we only the ob- 
jective side of the problems to consider, we might, perhaps, doubt 
even whether there were any problems; whether they were not 
rather simple events, bringing in their train certain obvious 
consequences, whether deplorable or desirable. These economic 
problems are, indeed, not in the least problematical. The silver 
question will not be brought up again; the trusts will not be 
dissolved; the protective tariff will not be taken off and labour 
unions will not be gotten rid of. These are all natural processes, 
rather than problems; but the fact that these events work di- 
versely on men's feelings, are greeted here with delight and there 
with consternation, and are accompanied by a general chorus 
of joy and pain, gives the impression that they are problems. 
This impression seizes the American himself so profoundly 
that his own reaction comes to be an objective factor of importance 
in making history. It is not to be doubted that the course of 
these much-discussed economic movements is considerably influ- 
enced by prejudices, sentiments, and hobbies. 

The Silver Question 

Perhaps the power of mere ideas — of those which are clear, 
and, even more, those which are confused — is shown in none of 
these problems more strongly than in the silver question. If 
any problem has been really solved, it is this one; and still no one 
can say that it has dropped out of the American mind, although, 
for strategic reasons, politicians ignore it. The sparks of the 
fire still glow under the ashes of two Presidential campaigns. 
The silver schemes have too strongly fixed public attention to 
be so quickly forgotten, and any day may see them revive again. 
Just here the possibility of prejudices which would not profit 



28o THE AMERICANS 

by experience has been remarkably large, since the question of 
currency involves such complicated conceptions that fallacious 
arguments are difficult to refute. And such a situation is just 
the one w^here the battle of opinions can be waged the hottest: 
the silver question has, in fact, more excited the nation than any 
other economic problem of the last ten years. And there can be 
no doubt that many valid arguments have been urged on the 
w^rong side, and some untenable theses on the right side. 

The starting-point of the discussion lay in the law of 1873, 
which, for the first time in the United States, excluded silver 
coin from the official currency. There had already been dif- 
ferences of opinion before the passage of this law. The friends of 
silver say that in 1792 the United States permitted the coinage of 
both silver and gold without limit, and that silver was the actual 
monetary standard. And, although by accidents of production 
the relative value of the precious metals, which had been 15 to i, 
later became 16 to i, nevertheless the two metals continued to 
be regarded equally important until the surreptitious crime of 
1873. It was a secret crime, they say, because the law was 
debated and published at a time when the nation could have no 
clear idea of what it meant. The Civil War had driven gold 
coin out of the country, every one was using paper, and no one 
stopped to ask whether this paper would be redeemed in gold 
or silver, and no one was accustomed to seeing gold coins in cir- 
culation. General Grant, who was President at that time, 
signed the bill without any suspicion that it was anything more 
than a technical measure, much less that it was a criminal hold- 
up of the nation on the part of the rich. And great was the 
disaster; for the law demonetized silver, brought a stringency 
of gold, lowered prices tremendously, depressed the condition 
of the nation, and brought the farmers to poverty, so it was said. 

The opponents of bimetallism recognize no truth in this 
story. They say that in the first third of the nineteenth century 
the silver dollar was counted equal to the gold dollar, at the ratio 
of 15 ounces to i ounce of metal; but since this ratio did not con- 
tinue to correspond with the market price, and the gold of the 
country went to Europe, because it there brought a better value, 
the official ratio was changed as early as 1834 to 16 to i. This 
rate put a small premium on gold, and virtually established a gold 



SILVER QUESTION 281 

standard for American currency. The owners of silver mines 
no longer had silver coined in the country, because they could 
get more money for their silver bars abroad; and so, as a matter 
of fact, during the next decade only 8 million silver dollars were 
coined, and this denomination virtually went out of circulation. 
Only the fractional silver currency could be kept in the country, 
and that only by resorting to the trick of making the coins pro- 
portionately lighter than the legal weight of the silver dollar. 

The currency became, therefore, to all intents and purposes, a 
gold one, and nobody was discontented with it, because silver 
was then less mined. From 1851 to 1855, for instance, the average 
silver production of the United States was only ^375,000, while 
that of gold was 1^62,000,000. Then came the lean years of the 
Rebellion. The government borrowed from the banks, in the 
autumn of 1861, ^100,000,000 in gold, and in the following year 
issued $150,000,000 of unsecured greenbacks. Thereupon the 
natural laws of exchange drove all sound currency out of the 
country, and ;^i50,ooo,ooo more greenbacks were soon issued. 
The premium on gold went higher and higher, and reached its 
highest point in 1864, when the price was 185 per cent, of the 
normal value. After the war confidence was restored, the paper 
dollar rose from 43 to 80 cents; but the quantity of paper in cir- 
culation was so tremendous that metallic money was never seen, 
and not until the early seventies did conditions become solid 
enough for the treasury to take steps to redeem the greenbacks. 

But this was just the time when all the civilized nations were 
adopting the gold standard — a time in which the production of 
gold had become incredibly large. The two decades between 1850 
and 1870 had brought five times as much gold bullion into the 
world as the preceding two decades, and the leading financiers 
of all countries were agreed that it was high time to make gold 
the universal standard of exchange. The general movement 
was begun in the conference of 1867 held in Paris. Germany 
led in adopting the gold standard; the United States followed 
in 1873. The gold dollar, which since the middle of the century 
had been the actual standard of American currency, became now 
the official standard, and silver coinage was discontinued. There 
was nothing of secrecy or premeditated injustice, for the debates 
lasted through several sessions of Congress. 



282 THE AMERICANS 

If, nevertheless, the so-called crime remained unnoticed, and so 
many Senators failed to know what they were doing, this was not 
because the transactions went on in secret, nor because the use 
of paper money had made every one forget the problems of me- 
tallic currency, but rather because no one felt at that time that 
he would be injured by the new measure, although the attention 
of everybody had been called to the discussions. The owners 
of silver mines themselves had no interest in having their mineral 
made into coin, and no one was disturbed to see silver go out of 
circulation. All the trouble and all the hue and cry about a 
secret plot did not commence until several years later, when, for 
entirely independent reasons, circumstances had considerably 
changed. The step had been taken, however, and the principle 
has not been repudiated. The unlimited coinage of silver has 
not been permitted by the United States since 1873. 

Nevertheless, silver was destined soon again to become regular 
currency. Hard times followed the year 1873, prices fell and 
the value of silver fell with them, and bimetallic coinage had 
been discontinued. Bimetallists connected these facts, and 
said that the price of silver fell because the commercial world 
had stopped coining it. For this reason the only other coined 
metal, which was gold, became dear, which meant, of course, that 
prices became cheap, and that the farmer got a low price for his 
harvests. And thus the population was driven into a sort of 
panic. 

A ready expedient was suggested: it was to coin silver once 
more, since that would carry off the surplus and raise the price; 
while on the other hand, the increased amount of coin in circu- 
lation would bring prices up and restore the prosperity of the 
farmers and artisans. This is the main argument which was 
first heard in 1876, and was cried abroad with increasing loudness 
until twenty years later it was not merely preached, but shouted 
by frenzied masses, and still in 1900, misled the Democratic 
party. But the desire for an increased medium of circulation is 
by no means the same as the demand for silver coinage. After 
the Civil War the public had demanded more greenbacks just 
as clamorously as it now demanded silver. It was also convinced 
that nothing but currency was needed to make high values, no 
matter what the value of the currency itself. 



SILVER QUESTION 283 

So far as these main facts are concerned, which have been so 
unjustly brought into connection, there can be no doubt that 
the depreciation of silver was brought about only in very small 
part by the coinage laws. To be sure, the cessation of silver 
coinage by several large commercial powers had its effect on the 
value of silver; but India, China, and other countries remained 
ready to absorb large amounts of silver for coinage; and in fact 
the consumption of silver increased steadily for a long time. The 
real point was that the production of silver increased tremen- 
dously at just the time when the production of gold was falling 
off. From 1 85 1 to 1875, ^127,000,000 worth of gold on an aver- 
age was mined annually, but from 1876 to 1890 the average was 
only ;^ 1 08,000,000; while, on the other hand, the average produc- 
tion of silver in those first twenty-five years was only ^51,000,000, 
but in the following fifteen years came up to ^116,000,000. 
The output of gold therefore decreased 15 per cent., while that of 
silver increased 127 per cent. Of course, then silver depreciated. 
Now the future was soon to show that increased coinage of silver 
would not raise its price. Above all, it was an arbitrary miscon- 
struction to ascribe bad times to the lack of circulating medium. 
Later times have shown that, under the complicated credit system 
of the country, prices do not depend on the amount of legal 
tender in circulation in the industrial world. The speed of cir- 
culation is a factor of equal importance with the amount of it; and, 
most important of all, is the total credit, which has no relation 
to the amount of metallic currency. When more money was 
coined it remained for the time being unused, and could not be 
put in circulation until the industrial situation recovered from its 
depression. 

Thus the bad times of the seventies were virtually independent 
of coinage legislation: but public agitation had set in, and as 
early as 1878 met with considerable success. In that year the 
so-called Bland Bill was passed, over the veto of President 
Hayes, which required the treasury of the United States to 
purchase and coin silver bars to the value of not less than 2 million, 
and not more than four million, dollars every month. This 
measure satisfied neither the one side nor the other. The sil- 
verites wanted unlimited coinage of silver; for, if a limit was put, 
the standard was still gold, even though the price of silver should 



28^ THE AMERICANS 

be somewhat helped. The other side saw simply that the currency 
of the country would be flooded with depreciated metal, and one 
which was really an unofficial and illegal circulating medium. 
It was known that the silver, after being coined into dollars, 
would be worth more than its market value, and it was already 
predicted that all the actual gold of the country would be taken 
abroad and replaced by silver. The "gold bugs" also saw that 
this legislation would artificially stimulate the mining of silver 
if there should actually be any increase in its price. 

The new law was thus a bad compromise between two parties, 
although to many it seemed like a safe middle way between two 
dangers. Some recognized in the unlimited coinage of silver 
the dangers of a depreciated currency, but believed that the 
adoption of the gold standard would be no less dangerous, be- 
cause gold was too scarce to satisfy the needs of the commercial 
world. It was said that free silver would poison the social organ- 
ism and free gold would strangle it, and that limited silver coinage, 
along with unlimited gold coinage, would therefore be the only 
safe thing. 

But it soon appeared that such legal provisions would have no 
effect in restoring the value of the white metal. Although the 
government facilitated in every way the circulation of the new 
silver coins, they nevertheless came back to the treasury. No 
matter how many silver dollars were distributed as wages, they 
found their way at once to the retail shops, then to the banks, and 
then to Washington. It appeared that the nation could not keep 
more than sixty or seventy million dollars' worth in circulation, 
while there were already more than ^400,000,000 lying idle 
in Washington. The banks boycotted silver at first; but the 
more important fact was that the price of silver did not rise, but 
kept on falling. It was the amount produced and naturally 
consumed, and not the amount coined, which regulated the 
price of silver. In the year 1889 the relative values of silver 
and gold were as 22 to i ; and the true value of the silver dollar 
coined under the Bland Bill was only seventy-two cents. Con- 
gress now proposed to take a more serious measure looking toward 
a higher price for silver. 

In July, 1890, a law was passed whereby the treasury was 
obliged to buy four and one-half million ounces of silver every 



SILVER QUESTION 285 

month at the market price, and against this to issue treasury 
certificates to the corresponding amount, which should be re- 
deemable either in gold or silver; since, as that law declared, the 
United States asserted the equal status of the two metals. The 
law did not prescribe the number of silver certificates which were 
to be issued, since the weight of silver to be purchased was fixed 
and the value of it depended on the market. Only a few months 
afterward it became clear that even this energetic stroke would 
not much help the price of silver. The silver and gold dollars 
would have been really equal to each other if an ounce of silver 
had brought a market price of ^1.29. In August, 1890, silver 
came up to ^1.21 an ounce, and fell the next year to ^i.oo, and 
in 1892 to $0.85. But while the price of silver was falling, gold 
was rapidly leaving the country. 

In April, 1893, the gold reserve of the treasury fell for the first 
time below the traditional hundred millions. It was a time of 
severe economic depression. The silverites still believed that the 
rise of silver had not commenced because its purchase was re- 
stricted to monthly installments, and they clamoured for unlimited 
purchases of silver. But the nation opposed this policy energet- 
ically. President Cleveland called an extra session of Congress, 
and after a bitter fight in the Senate, the law providing for the 
purchases of silver and issue of silver certificates was repealed, in 
November of 1893. The Democratic party had split on this 
measure, and then arose the two divisions, the Gold Demo- 
crats who followed Cleveland, and the Silver Democrats who 
found a leader a year later in Bryan, and dictated the policy of 
the Democratic party for the following decade. 

Looking on American economic history from the early seven- 
ties to the middle nineties without prejudice, one cannot doubt 
not only that the entire legislation relative to coinage has had 
scarcely any influence on the price of gold and silver — since the 
price of silver has fallen steadily in spite of the enormous amounts 
purchased — but also that the general industrial situation, the 
movement of prices, and the volume of business have been very 
little aff^ected by these financial measures. 

The strongest influence which they have had has been a moral 
one. Business became active and foreign commerce revived as 
soon as the confidence in the American currency was restored. 



286 THE AMERICANS 

This result, of course, contradicted the expectations and wishes of 
the apostles of silver. International confidence declined in propor- 
tion as a legal tender standing for a depreciated metal was forced 
into circulation. It was not the amount of silver, but the fear of 
other countries as to what that amount might become, which most 
injured American commerce. And the great achievement of Cleve- 
land's Administration was to reassure the world of our solidity. 

Otherwise the economic fluctuations depended on events which 
were very little related to the actual amount of gold on hand. 
If, in certain years, the amount of circulation increased, it was 
the result rather than the cause of industrial activity; and when, 
in other years, a speculative movement collapsed, less money was 
used afterward, but the shortage of money did not cause the 
collapse. Then, too, harvests were sometimes good and at other 
times bad, and foreign commerce changed in dependence on 
quite external events in Europe. There were, moreover, certain 
technical improvements in agricultural and industrial processes 
which rapidly lowered prices and which took effect at independent 
times and seasons. 

The year 1893 was a time in which a great many factors worked 
in one direction. The overbuilding of railways and a too great 
expansion of iron industries had been followed by a terrible 
reaction; a surplus of commodities on all the markets of the 
world caused prices to fall, and the international distrust of 
silver legislation in the United States made the situation worse. 
European capital, on which all undertakings then depended, was 
hurriedly withdrawn; thousands of businesses failed, and small 
men fell into debt. The actual panic did not last long, and 
Cleveland's successful move of 1893 restored the international 
confidence. But the situation of the general public was not so 
readily improved. This was the psychological moment in which 
the silver question, which had hitherto interested relatively re- 
stricted circles, so suddenly came to excite the entire nation that 
m 1896 the main issue of the Presidential campaign was silver or 
gold currency. The silver craze spread most rapidly among the 
farmers, who had suffered more from overproduction than had 
the manufacturers. The manufacturer sold his wares more cheap- 
ly, but in greater quantities, because he improved his methods, 
and, moreover, he bought his raw materials more cheaply. But 



SILVER QUESTION 287 

the fall in the prices of wheat and corn and other agricultural 
products which affected the farmer was only in small part due 
to more intensive cultivation, but rather to the greater area 
of land which had been planted. The farmer in one state was 
not benefited by the fact that great areas in some other state 
were now for the first time laid down to wheat and corn. As 
prices fell he produced no more, and thus agriculture suffered 
more severely than industry. While the farmer was able to get 
for two sheaves of wheat only as much as he used to get for one, 
he thought, of course, that his patrons had too little money, and 
was readily convinced that if more money could only be coined, 
he would get good prices again. 

There was another argument in addition to this, which could 
still even more easily be imposed on the ignorant, and not only 
on the farmer, but on all classes that were in debt. Silver was 
cheaper than gold, and if debts were paid in it the creditor lost 
and the debtor won. It was at this time that the conflict of in- 
terests between the great capitalists and the labouring masses 
began to arouse political excitement. Distrust found its way into 
a good part of the population, and finally a hatred of capitalists 
and monopolies, and of the stock market most of all. 

This hatred vented itself in a mad clamour for silver. If Con- 
gress would authorize an unlimited silver coinage at the ratio of 16 
to I, while the market ratio was down to 33 to i — so that the silver 
dollar would be worth hardly fifty cents, and so that the farmer 
could sell his wheat or maize for a dollar when it was really worth 
but half a dollar — then at last the robbers on the stock exchange 
would be well come up with. In reality, these two arguments 
contradicted each other, for the farmer would be benefited 
by more silver money only if the market value of silver could 
be brought up to that of gold; while he would be favoured in the 
payment of debts only if gold could be brought down to the value 
of silver. But once let there be any sort of distress, and any 
ghost of relief haunting the general mind, then logic is totally 
forgotten. A new faith arises, the power of which lies in sug- 
gestion. The call for free-silver coinage at the old ratio of 16 
to I fascinated the agricultural masses as well as the lower classes 
in cities, just as the idea of a future state of socialism fascinates 
German working-men to-day. 



288 THE AMERICANS 

And just as one cannot understand the German people without 
taking into account their socialistic delusions, so one cannot un- 
derstand the American masses to-day without tracing out the 
course of the silver propaganda. It was the organizing power of a 
watchword which gave the delusion such significance, and which, 
for perhaps the first time, gave voice to the aversion which the 
masses felt toward the wealthy classes; and so, like the socialistic 
movement in Germany, it took effect in far wider circles than the 
points over which the discussion started would have justified. 

But the masses could hardly be stirred up to such a powerful 
agitation merely on the basis of the specious arguments spread 
about by ignorant fanatics, or even with the substantial support 
of the indebted farmer. In the middle nineties the literature 
of the silver question swelled enormously. A mere appeal to 
the passions of those who hated capital would not have been 
enough, and even the argument that the amount of money in a 
country alone regulates prices could have been refuted once 
for all. A financial and an intellectual impetus were both 
necessary to the agitation, and both were to be had. Distin- 
guished political economists saw clearly certain unfairnesses 
and evils in a simple gold standard, and urged many an argument 
for bimetallism which the masses did not wholly follow, but which 
provided material for general discussion. And financial aid for the 
silver side flowed freely from the pockets of those who owned 
silver mines. Of course, there was no doubt that these mine- 
owners would be tremendously prospered by any radical legis- 
lation for silver. In the days of the Bland Bill even the poorest 
silver mines were in active operation, whereas now everything 
was quiet. The discussions which ostensibly urged the right of 
the poor man against the rich said nothing at all of the deep 
schemes of the silver-mine owners. These men did not urge 
their claims openly, but they paid their money and played the 
game shrewdly. 

We have already fully compared the political traits of the two 
parties; and it will be understood at once that the contest for 
silver, as a movement for the rights of the poor man against those 
of the capitalist, would have to be officially waged by the 
Democratic party, while the Republican party would, of course, 
take the other side. The nation fought out the great battle in 



TARIFF QUESTION 289 

two heated Presidential campaigns; and in 1896 as well as in 
1900, the contest was decided in favour of the gold currency. 
The currency legislation of the Republican Congresses has held 
to a conservative course. In March, of 1900, the treasury 
was instructed, on demand, to redeem all United States notes in 
gold, so that all the money in circulation came to have absolutely 
the same value. The old silver certificates, of which to-day 
^450,000,000 are in circulation, can at any time be exchanged 
for gold coin, and the Secretary of the Treasury was entirely 
right in showing in his last annual report that it was this wise 
provision alone which obviated a panic at the time when stock 
market quotations dropped so suddenly in the year 1903. Thus 
the finances of the country are definitely on a gold basis. 

But, as we have said, we are not interested in the material 
aspects of the currency situation, and still less shall we undertake 
a profound discussion of bimetallism, as scientific circles are to- 
day considering it. The significance of a limited double stand- 
ard, especially in view of the commerce with the East, and of the 
effect it will have in quieting the international struggle to get 
the yellow metal, is much discussed by thoughtful persons. The 
United States have sent a special commission to visit other countries 
in order to persuade them that some international agreement as 
to the monetary recognition of silver is desirable. 

All this does not interest us. We care for the silver question 
only as a social movement. No other problem has so pro- 
foundly moved the nation; even the questions of expansion 
and imperialism have so far aroused less general interest. It is 
only too likely that if hard times return once more, the old 
craze will be revived in one form or another. The silver intoxi- 
cation is not over to-day, and the western part of the country 
is merely for the moment too busy bringing its tremendous 
crops to harvest, and carrying its gold back home, to think of 
anything else. 

The Tariff Question 

The silver question, which was of such great significance yester- 
day, was very complicated, and only very few who discussed it 
knew all the difficulties which it involved. This is not true of 
the tariff question, which may at any time become the main polit- 



2go THE AMERICANS 

ical issue. As the problem of protective tariff is generally dis- 
cussed, it involves only the simplest ideas. 

The dispdte has come from a conflict of principle and motive, 
but not from any difference of opinion as to the effect of pro- 
tective measures. Here and there it has been maintained, as 
it has in other countries, that the foreigner pays the tariff; and 
this argument has, indeed, occasioned keen and complicated dis- 
cussions. But, for the most part, no academic questions are 
involved, rather conditions merely which are obvious to all, but 
toward which people feel very differently, according to their oc- 
cupation, geographical position, and political convictions. The 
struggle is not to be conceived as one between protective tariff 
and free trade, but rather as between more or less protective 
tariff" — since, in spite of variations, the United States have, 
from the very outset, enacted a tariff greater than the needs of 
the public treasury, with the idea of protecting domestic labour 
from foreign competition. 

Indeed, it can be said that the policy of protection belongs 
even to the prehistory of the United States, and that it has con- 
tributed measurably to building up the Union. While America 
was an English colony, England took care to suppress American 
industries; agriculture and trade were to constitute the business of 
the colonists. The War for Independence altered the situation, 
and native industries began to develop, and they had made a 
brave start in many states before the war was ended. But as 
soon as the ties with England had been broken, the separate 
states manifested diverse interests, and interfered in their trade 
with one another by enacting customs regulations. It looked as 
if a tariff war on American soil would be the first fruits of free- 
dom from the common oppressor. There was no central power 
to represent common interests, to fix uniform revenues for the 
general good, and uniform protection for the industry of the 
country. And when one state after another was persuaded to 
give up its individual rights to the Federation, one of the main 
considerations was the annulment of such interstate customs, 
which were hindering economic development, and the establish- 
ment of a uniform protection for industry. The tariff law of 
1789 contained, first of all, such provisions as ensured the neces- 
sary public revenue, tariff on goods in whose manufacture the 



TARIFF QUESTION zgi 

Americans did not compete; and then other tariffs which were 
meant to protect American industries. 

So, at the outset, the principle of protective tariff was made 
an official pohcy by the United States; and since, through the 
highly diversified history of more than eleven decades, the nation 
has still held instinctively to this policy, we can hardly doubt 
that the external and internal conditions under which the country 
has stood have been favourable to such a policy. The tremendous 
natural resources, especially of iron, copper, lumber, fur, cotton, 
wool, and other raw materials, and the inexhaustible supply of 
energy in the coal-fields, oil-wells, and water-falls, have afforded 
the material conditions without which an industrial independ- 
ence would have been impossible. The optimistic American 
has found himself in this land of plenty with his energy, his in- 
ventive genius, and his spirit of self-determination. It was pre- 
destined that the nation should not only till the fields, produce 
raw materials, and engage in trade, but that it should set stoutly 
to work to develop its own industries. Therefore, it seemed nat- 
ural to pass laws to help these along, although the non-industrial 
portions of the country, and all classes which were not engaged 
in industry, were for a time inconvenienced by higher prices. 

Once launched, the country drifted further and further in the 
direction of protective duties. In 1804 a tariff was enacted on 
iron and on glassware, with unquestionably protective intent. 
It is true that, in general, the principal increases in the beginning 
of the century were planned to accelerate the national income. 
The War of 18 12 especially caused all tariffs to be doubled. But 
this war stirred up patriotism and a general belief in the abilities 
of the nation. Native industries were now supported by patriotic 
enthusiasm, so that in 18 16 the duties on cotton and woollen goods 
and on manufactured iron were increased for the sake of protec- 
tion. And the movement went on. New tariff clauses were 
enacted, and new friends won over, often in their own selfish 
interests, until the early thirties. The reaction started in the 
South, which profited least from the high tariff. Compromises 
were introduced, and many of the heaviest duties were taken off. 
By the early forties, when the movement lapsed, duties had been 
reduced by about 20 per cent. 

At this time the divided opinions in favour of raising or lowering 



2g2 THE AMERICANS 

duties commenced to play an important part in politics. Pro- 
tective tariff and tariff reduction were the watchwords of the two 
parties. In 1842 the Protectionist party got the reins of govern- 
ment, and at once put heavy duties on iron, paper, glass, and 
cotton and woollen goods. Four years later, tariffs were somewhat 
reduced, owing to Democratic influences; but the principle of 
protection was still asserted, as is shown by the fact that tea 
and coffee, which were not grown in the country, were not taxed, 
while industrial manufactured articles were taxed on the average 
30 per cent. The Democrats continued to assert their influence, 
and won a victory here and there. Wool was admitted free in 
1857. Then came bad times. After a severe commercial 
crisis, imports decreased and therewith the customs revenues. 
The demand for high tariff then increased, and the Republicans 
got control of Congress, and enacted in the year 1861 the Morrill 
Tariff, which, although strongly protective, was even more strongly 
a Republican party measure. It aimed to discriminate in pro- 
tecting the industries of those states which the Republican party 
desired to win over. Then came the Civil War, the enormous 
expense of which required all customs and taxes to be greatly 
increased. 

The war tariff of 1864 was enacted for the sake of revenue, 
but its effect was decidedly protective. And when the war was 
over, and tariffs might have been reduced so far as revenue went, 
industries were so accustomed to the artificial protection that 
no one was willing to take off duties. Some customs, even such 
as those on woollen and copper, were considerably increased in 
the next few years, while those on coffee and tea were again 
entirely removed. 

In general, it was a time of uncertain fluctuations in the tariff 
until the year 1883, when the whole matter was thoroughly re- 
vised. In certain directions, the customs were lowered; in others, 
increased. Specially the higher grades of manufactured articles 
were put under a higher tariff, while the cheaper articles used 
by the general public were taxed more lightly. A short time after 
this. President Cleveland, as leader of the Free-Trade Demo- 
crats, came out with a famous message against protection. The 
unexpected result was, that after the tariff question had thus 
once more been brought to the front, the Republicans gained a 



TARIFF QUESTION 293 

complete victory for their side, and enacted a tariff more extreme 
than any which had gone before, and which protected not only 
existing industries, but also such as it was hoped might spring up. 
Even sugar was now put on the free list, because it had been taxed 
merely for revenue, and not for protection. While, on the other 
hand, almost all manufactured articles which were made in the 
country were highly protected. This was specially the case with 
velvet, silk, woollen, and metal goods. This was the well-known 
McKinley Tariff. 

The Democrats won the next election, although not on the 
issue of industrial legislation, and as soon as they came into 
power they upset the high tariffs. Their Wilson Tariff Bill of 
1894, the result of long controversies, showed little internal con- 
sistency. Too many compromises had been found necessary 
with these or those influential industries in order to pass the bill 
at all. Yet, on the whole, customs were considerably lowered, 
and for the first time in a long while raw materials, such as wool, 
were put on the free list. But Democratic rule did not last long. 
McKinley was victorious in 1896, and in the following year the 
Dingley Tariff was passed in accordance with Republican ideas of 
protection, and it is still in force. 

The total revenues derived from this source in the year 1902 
were ^251,000,000, and in 1903 were ^280,000,000. Let us 
analyze the first amount. Its relative importance in the total 
revenue may be seen from the fact that the internal duties on 
liquor, tobacco, etc., amounted to 1^271,000,000, and that the 
postal budget for the year was ;^ 12 1,000,000. The customs 
duties of 1^251,000,000 are officially divided into five classes. 
The first is live animals and breadstuffs, with sugar at the head 
bringing in ^52,000,000. The sugar duty had not existed ten 
years before, but the Wilson Tariff of 1894 could not have been 
enacted if the beet-sugar Senators from Louisiana had not been 
tossed a bone. In 1895 the revenue on sugar amounted to 
^15,000,000, and in 1901 to ^62,000,000. After sugar, in this 
year of 1903, came fruits and nuts with 5, vegetables with 3, meat, 
fish, and rice with only i million dollars each. The second class 
comprises raw materials. Wool yielded 10.9, skins 2.6, coal i mil- 
lion dollars, and every other class still less. In the- third class are 
the semi-manufactured products, with chemicals yielding 5.4, tin 



2g4 THE AMERICANS 

plate 2.9, wooden-ware 1.8, silk i.i, and fur i million dollars. The 
fourth class comprises finished products. Linen goods yielded 14, 
woollen goods 13, cotton goods 10, metallic wares 6, porcelain 5.6, 
leather goods 3.1, and wooden and paper wares each i million 
dollars. Articles of luxury make the last class, with tobacco 
bringing 18.7, silk goods 16, laces 13, alcoholic drinks 10, jewelry 
2.4, feathers 1.4, and toys 1.3 million dollars. The total imports 
for the year were ^903,000,000, of which ^396,000,000 entered 
free of duty; but of these last only 10 per cent, were half or 
wholly finished products, 90 per cent, being food or raw mate- 
rials. The duty was collected from imports worth ^507,000,000, 
and 64 per cent, came from manufactured articles. Thus the 
Dingley Tariff was a complete victory for protection. 

No one now asks to have the duties raised, but the Democratic 
party is trying all the time to have them lowered, so that the 
question is really whether they shall be lower or remain where 
they are. Of course, the Republicans have a capital argument 
which looks unanswerable — success. The history of American 
protection, they say, is the history of American industrial prog- 
ress. The years during which native industry has been pro- 
tected from foreign competition by means of heavy duties have 
been the times of great development, and years of depression, 
disaster, and panic have regularly followed whenever free-traders 
have removed duties. The tariflp has never been higher than 
under the McKinley and the Dingley bills, and never has the 
economic advance been more rapid or forceful. What is the 
use, they say, of representing to the working-man that he could buy 
a suit so much cheaper if the tax on woollen goods were removed? 
For if it were, and free-trade were to be generally adopted, he 
would go about without employment, his wife and children would 
be turned out into the street, and he would be unable to buy even 
the cheapest suit. Whereas to-day, he is well able to pay the 
price which is asked. The wealth of fancy with which this sort 
of argument is constantly varied, and tricked out with word and 
phrase suited to every taste, is almost overpowering. But the 
alternative between the high wage which can afford to pay for 
the expensive suit, and the lower wage which cannot afford to pay 
for the cheap suit, becomes still more cogent since the fanatical 
protectionist is able to prove that under a high tariff wages have 



TARIFF QUESTION 295 

in fact risen, while the price of the suit has not. Yet the extreme 
free-trader can prove, with equal certainty, that under free-trade 
the suit would actually be much cheaper, while wages would in 
the end be even higher. 

It cannot be doubted that a number of industries are to-day 
very prosperous which could not have gotten even a foot-hold 
except by a century of protection. And no Democrat denies this. 
But he doubts whether the hot-house forcing of such industries 
has benefited the country, and he believes that the artificial 
perpetuation of great industrial combinations, which have been 
able, by means of a protective tariff, to put an artificially high 
price on the food and other necessary articles used by the masses, 
has worked infinitely more harm than good. 

It is undoubtedly true that many industries have not only 
been protected, but have actually been created. The tin plate 
industry is, perhaps, the best example of this. The United States 
used to obtain the tin plates needed in industry from Wales, 
and at unreasonably high prices. Twice the Americans tried to 
introduce the industry at home, but were at once undersold by 
the English and "frozen out." Then the McKinley Tariff put a 
duty on tin plate of 70 per cent, ad valorem, and the American 
industry was able to make headway. In 1891, 1,036 million 
pounds of tin plate were imported, and none was produced at 
home; two years later only 628 million pounds were imported, 
and 100 million pounds manufactured at home; and ten years 
later only 117 million pounds came over the sea, while 894 
million pounds were produced in this country. It has been 
much the same in the manufacture of watches. The United 
States imported all their watches a few years ago. They were 
then taxed 10 per cent, for revenue, being accounted articles 
of luxury, and could not be profitably made inside the country. 
But when Congress taxed them 25 per cent., the industry grew 
up. It produced at first watches after European models; but 
American ingenuity soon came to be extended to this field, im- 
proved machinery for the manufacture of watches was devised, 
and now a tremendous industry provides every American school- 
boy with a watch which is better and cheaper than the corre- 
sponding European article. Even the silk industry may well be 
considered the foster child of protection. 



2g6 THE AMERICANS 

The free-traders reply, that all this may have been very well for 
a period of transition from an agricultural to an industrial state; 
but that the great change has now been completed, and the 
burdensome duties which keep our prices high might perfectly 
well be dropped, since our industries are now strong enough to 
compete with foreign industries. 

But just at this point the Republican comes out less optimistic- 
ally than before. He says that American industry has indeed 
developed with fabulous speed, and that the industrial exports 
of the country, which now amount to 30 per cent, of the total, are 
a great showing, but this is a symptom which ought not to be 
overrated. When prices throughout the rest of the world fell, 
and England was paralyzed for the moment, although the do- 
mestic demand had not yet reached its height, conditions com- 
bined so favourably, it is true, as to cause the export trade in Amer- 
ican manufactured articles to increase rapidly. But this may not 
be permanent. Industry is still not able to fill all the demands 
of the home market; on the contrary, at the very time when Amer- 
ican iron and steel industries seemed likely to conquer foreign 
markets, it was found that some sudden increase in domestic 
requirements necessitated large importations. While the iron and 
steel exports decreased by 1^25,000,000 between 1900 and 1903, 
the imports during the same time increased ^31,000,000, and iron 
and steel include mostly unfinished products. 

Thus even the strongest and most powerful industries greatly 
need protection still against foreign competition. It is, Thomas 
Reed has said, entirely mistaken to look on protection as a sort 
of medicine, to be left off as soon as possible. It is not medicine, 
but nourishment. The high tariff has not only nursed infant 
industries, but it is to feed them through life. For it is not a 
happy expedient, but a system which is justified by its results, 
and of which the final import is that the American market is for 
the American people. Protection is a wall behind which the 
American people can carry on their industrial life, and so arrange 
it that wages shall be not only absolutely but relatively greater 
than wages in Europe. 

At a time when everything looked so prosperous as in the last 
few years of industrial activity, it is difficult to contest the power- 
ful argument which the Republicans make in appealing to success. 



TARIFF QUESTION 2gy 

Every one is afraid that a change in tariff might turn back this 
tide. And if there have been reverses in the last few years it 
has been pointed out that speculators and corporation magnates 
have been the chief sufferers, and they are the ones who, least of 
all, would wish the tariffs removed. 

It has been an unfavourable time, therefore, for the free-traders, 
and their really powerful party has been rather faint-hearted in 
its fight against the Dingley Tariff. Its satisfaction with the 
Wilson Tariff was not unmixed, and although it could truthfully 
say that the law as actually passed was not a Democratic measure 
since it received six hundred and forty amendments in the Senate, 
nevertheless it realizes that the legislative measures of the last 
Democratic regime pleased nobody thoroughly and contributed 
a good deal to the subsequent Republican victory. 

Nevertheless, the Democrats feel that the Republican argu- 
ments are fallacious. It is not the protective tariff, they say, 
which has brought about American prosperity, but the natural 
wealth of the country, together with the energy and intelligence 
of its inhabitants. The high level of education, the free govern- 
ment, the pioneer ardour of the people, and the blessings of quick 
and rapid railway connections have made America great and 
prosperous. If, indeed, any legal expedients have been decisive 
in producing this happy result, these have been the free-trade 
measures, since the Republicans quite overlook the fact that the 
main factor making for our success has been the absolute free- 
trade prevailing between the forty-five states. What would have 
become of American industries if the states had enacted tariffs 
against one another, as the country does against the rest of the 
world, and as the countries of Europe do against one another? 
The entire freedom of trade from Maine to California, and from 
Canada to Mexico, that is, the total absence of all legislative 
hindrances and the possibility of free exchange of natural prod- 
ucts and manufactures without payment of duties, has made 
American industry what it is; and it is the same idea which the 
Democrats cherish for the whole world. They desire to get for 
America the advantages from free-trade which England has de- 
rived. 

All the well-known free-trade arguments — moral, political, and 
economic — are then urged; and it is shown, again and again, 



2g8 THE AMERICANS 

that every nation will succeed best in the long run by carrying 
on only such industries as it is able to in free competition with 
the world. It is true, admittedly, that if our tariff were removed 
a number of manufactures would have to be discontinued, and 
that the labourers would for a time be without work, as happens 
whenever a new machine is discovered, or whenever means of 
transportation are facilitated. The immediate effect is to take 
labour from the workman. But in a short time adaptation takes 
place, and in the end the new conditions automatically provide a 
much greater number of workmen with profitable employment 
than before. America would lose a part of the home market if she 
adopted free-trade, but would be able to open as many more doors 
to foreign countries as recompense. Her total production would 
in the end be greater, and all articles of consumption would be 
cheaper, so that the workmen could buy the same wares with a 
less amount of labour, and the adjustment of the American scale 
of wages would better enable the Americans to compete with the 
labour of other countries. 

But no doubt the times do not favour such logic. The Ameri- 
cans are too ready to believe the statement of Harrison, that the 
man who buys a cheaper coat is the cheaper man. And quite too 
easily the protectionists reply to all arguments against excluding 
foreign goods with the opposite showing that, in spite of the high 
tariff, the imports from abroad are steadily increasing. Under 
the Dingley Tariff, in the year 1903, not only the raw materials, 
but also the half and wholly manufactured articles, and arti- 
cles of luxury, imported increased to a degree which had never 
been reached in the years of the Wilson Tariff. The raw ma- 
terials imported under a Democratic tariff reached their high 
point in 1897, with ^207,000,000; when the Dingley Tariff was 
adopted the figure decreased to ^188,000,000, but then rose 
rapidly and amounted in 1902 to ^328,000,000, and in 1903 to 
^^383, 000,000. Finished products declined at first from ^165,- 
000,000 to ^94,000,000, but increased in 1903 to ^169,000,000. 
Articles of luxury sank from ^^92,000,000 to ^74,000,000, but then 
mounted steadily until in the year 1903 they were at the un- 
precedented figure of ^145,000,000. 

In spite of this, the Democratic outlook is improving ; not 
because people incline to free-trade, but because they feel that 



TARIFF QUESTION 2gg 

the tariff must be revised, that certain duties must be decreased, 
and others, so far as reciprocity can be arranged with other 
countries, abolished. Everybody sees that the international trade 
balance of last year shoves a movement which cannot keep on. 
America cannot, in the long run, sell where she does not buy. 
She will not find it profitable to become the creditor of other 
nations, and will feel it to be a wiser policy to close commercial 
treaties with other nations to the advantage of both sides. Reci- 
procity is not a theory of the Democratic party merely, but is the 
sub-conscious wish of the entire nation, as may be concluded from 
the fact that McKinley's last great speech voiced this new desire. 

He had, more than any one else, a fine scent for coming political 
tendencies; and his greatness always consisted in voicing to-day 
what the people would be coming to want by to-morrow. On 
the fifth of September, 1901, at the Buffalo Exposition, he made 
a memorable speech, in which he said: "We must not repose 
in fancied security that we can forever sell everything and buy 
little or nothing. If such a thing were possible, it would not be 
best for us or for those with whom we deal. We should take from 
our customers such of their products as we can use without 
harm to our industries and labour. Reciprocity is the natural 
outgrowth of our wonderful industrial development under the 
domestic policy now firmly established. What we produce 
beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad. 
The excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet, and we 
should sell anywhere we can and buy wherever the buying will 
enlarge our sales and productions, and thereby make a greater 
demand for home labour. The period of exclusiveness is past. 
The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. 
Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good will and 
friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity 
treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times. Measures 
of retaliation are not. 

" If perchance some of our tariffs are no longer needed for 
revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, 
why should they not be employed to extend and promote our 
markets abroad ? " 

This was the same McKinley whose name had been the 
apprehension of Europe, and who in fact more than any one 



joo THE AMERICANS 

else was morally responsible for the high-tariff movement in the 
United States. The unique position which his service of pro- 
tection had won him in the party, would perhaps have enabled 
this one man to lead the Republican party down from its high 
tariff to reciprocity. But McKinley has unhappily passed away, 
and no one is here to take his place. 

His successor has not had, in the first place, a great interest in 
questions of commerce. He has necessarily lacked, moreover, 
such strong authority within his party as would enable him to 
bring opposing interests into line on such a new policy. The 
young President was too much suspected of looking askance on 
great industrial companies. If he had placed himself at the head 
of the Republicans who were hoping to reduce the tariff, he 
would have been branded as a free-trader, and would not have 
been credited with that really warm feeling for protected American 
industries which in the case of McKinley was taken as a matter 
of course. More than that, the opponents deterred him, and would 
have deterred any one else who might have come in McKinley's foot- 
steps, or perhaps even McKinley himself, with the ghost of bad 
times which are to come whenever a certain feeling of insecurity 
is spreading through the commercial world. 

Everybody felt that, if the question of tariff should be opened 
up, unforeseen disputes might ensue. On questions of tariff 
every industry wields a lever in its own favour, and the Wilson 
Tariff had sufficiently shown how long and how tragico-comic 
can be the course from the law proposed to the law accomplished. 
It was felt everywhere that if the country should be brought into 
unrest by the fact that no industry could know for some years 
what its future was to be or where Congress might chance to 
take off protection, that all industry would be greatly injured. 
There could be no new undertakings for years, and whatever 
the ultimate result might be, the mere feeling of uncertainty 
would make a crisis sufficient to turn the tide of prosperity. 
And American reciprocity was after all only a matter of philan- 
thropy; for the experience with Canada and Hawaii, it was said, 
only showed that reciprocity meant benevolence on the part of 
America. 

If America is to be philanthropical, there is enough to do in 
other ways; but if America is to preserve her commercial interests 



TRUST QUESTION 301 

and her prosperous industries, it is absolutely necessary not to 
stir up trouble and push the country once more into tariff dis- 
turbances and expose industry to doubts and misgivings. And 
this ghost has made its impression. McKinley's words have 
aroused only a faint echo in the party. The need, however, 
which he instinctively felt remains, and public opinion knows 
it. It is only a question as to when public opinion will be stronger 
than party opinion. 

There is another thing which gives the anti-protectionists a 
better chance. Democrats say that high tariff has favoured 
the trusts. This may be true or false, and statistics speak for 
both views. But here is a watchword for the party which 
makes a deep impression, for the trusts are popularly hated. 
This, too, may be right or wrong, and may be still more easily 
argued for both sides, but the fact remains, and the seductive 
idea that abolishing high tariff will deal a fatal blow to the hated, 
extortionate, and tyrannical trusts gets more hold on the masses 
day by day. In vain the protectionists say that there is not a 
real monopoly in the whole country; that every instance of extor- 
tionate price calls out competition at once, and injures the trust 
which charges such price; that protection benefits the small and 
poor companies as much as the large, and that an attempt to 
injure the large companies by free-trade enactments would kill 
all small companies on the instant. And, besides, politics ought 
not to be run in the spirit of hatred. But the embitterment 
exists, and arguments avail little. It is incontestable that, of all 
the motives which are to-day felt to work against protection, 
the one most effective with the masses is their hatred of the 
trusts. Herewith we are led from the tariff question to this 
other problem — the trusts. 

The Trust Question 

" Von der Parteien Hass und Gunst venuirrt " — to be hated 
and to be favoured by the parties is the fate of the trusts. But 
the odd thing is that they are not hated by one party and favoured 
by the other; but both parties alike openly profess their hatred 
and yet show their favour by refraining after all from any action. 
And this inconsistency is not due to any intentional deception. 

To be sure, a good deal of it is political policy. The evils and 



302 THE AMERICANS 

dangers of many trust formations are so obvious that no party 
would like to praise them openly, and no party will dispense 
with the cheap and easy notoriety of declaring itself for open 
competition and against all monopolies. On the other hand, 
the power of the trusts is so great that neither party dares to break 
with them, and each has its special favourites, which could not be 
offended without prejudicing its campaign funds. Nevertheless, 
the deeper reason does not lie in the matter of expediency, but 
rather in the fact that no relief has been proposed which promises 
to be satisfactory. Some want to treat the evil superficially, as a 
quack doctor tries to allay secondary symptoms; and others want, 
as President Roosevelt has said, to end the disease by killing the 
patient. The fact that this inventive nation has still not solved 
its great economic problem, is probably because the trusts have 
grown necessarily from the organic conditions of American life, 
and would continue to exist in spite of all legislative hindrances 
which might be proposed against them. 

When Queen Elizabeth, in violation of the spirit of Anglo- 
Saxon law, distributed in the course of a year nearly fifty industrial 
monopolies, and caused the price of some commodities to be 
doubled, the House of Commons protested in 1601, and the Queen 
solemnly declared that she would revoke all privileges which 
endangered industrial freedom; and from that time on, monopo- 
lies were done away with. The American people are their own 
sovereign, and the effect of monopolies is now about the same as 
it was in England three hundred years ago. But the New World 
sovereign cannot issue a proclamation revoking the monopolies 
which it has granted, or at least it knows that the monopolies, if 
taken from one, would be snatched by another. It is true that 
the present form of trusts could be made illegal for the future, 
but some other form would appear, to compass the same ends; 
and if certain economic departments should be liberated by a 
free-trade legislation, the same forces would gather at other 
points. We must consider the essence of the matter rather than 
its outward form. 

The essence is certainly not, as the opponents of trusts like to 
represent, that a few persons are enriched at the expense of many; 
that the masses are plundered to heap up wealth for a small clique. 
The essence of the movement does not lie in the distribution of 



TRUST QUESTION 303 

wealth, but in the distribution of power. The significance of 
the movement is that in recent times the control of economic 
agencies has had to become more strongly concentrated. It is a 
mere attendant circumstance that in the formation of the trusts 
large financiers have pocketed disproportionately large profits, 
and that the leading trust magnates are the richest men of the 
country. The significance of their position lies in the confidence 
which is put in them. But the actual economic endeavour has 
been for the organized control of larger and larger undertakings. 
It has been very natural for the necessary consolidation of smaller 
parts into new and larger units to be accomplished by men who 
are themselves rich enough to retain a controlling share in the 
whole business; but this is a secondary factor, and the same result 
could have been had if mere agents had been appointed by the 
owners to all the great positions of confidence. 

Almost the same movement has gone on in other economic 
spheres than the industrial. Railroad companies are all the time 
being consolidated into large companies, controlled by fewer and 
fewer men, until finally a very few, like Morgan, Vanderbilt, 
Rockefeller, Harriman, Gould, Hill, and Cassatt, virtually control 
the whole railroad system. But this economic movement in the 
railroad world would not really stop if the state were to take over 
all the railroads, and a single badly paid secretary of railroads 
should be substituted for the group of millionaires. The main 
point is that the savings of the whole country are invested in these 
undertakings, and are looking for the largest possible returns, 
and get these only when leadership and control are strongly cen- 
tralized. 

The very obvious opulence of the leaders naturally excites 
popular criticism, but it has been often shown that the wealth of 
these rich people has not increased relatively to the average 
prosperity of other classes, and the corporations themselves make 
it possible to distribute the profits saved by concentration through- 
out the population. The famous United States Steel Company 
had last year 69,000 stockholders, and the shares of American 
railroads are owned by more than a million people. For instance, 
the Pennsylvania Railroad alone has 34,000 stock and bond 
holders, who intrust the control to a very few capitalists. In fact, 
the whole railway system belonging to a million people is con- 



J04 THE AMERICANS 

trolled by about a dozen men; and the Steel Company with its 
69,000 owners is managed by twenty-four directors, who in turn 
are guided by the two presidents of the administration and finance 
committees. The chief point is thus not the concentration of 
ownership, but the concentration of power. 

This same movement toward concentration has taken place in 
the banking business; and here the point is certainly, not that one 
man or a few men own a main share in the banks, but only that 
a few men are put in charge of a group of financial institutions 
for the sake of organized management. In this way the public 
is more uniformly and systematically served, and the banks are 
more secure, by reason of their mutual co-operation. 

Among the directors of the Bank of Commerce there are, for 
instance, directors of two life-insurance companies which have 
a capital of ^750,000,000, and of eight trust companies; and the 
directors of these trust companies are at the same time directors 
of other banks, so that they all make a complete chain of financial 
institutions. And they stand more or less under the influence of 
Morgan. There is, likewise, another system of banks, of which 
the chief is the National City Bank, which is dominated by Rocke- 
feller; and these personal connections between banks are con- 
tinued to the industrial enterprises, and then on to the railroad 
companies. For instance, the Rockefeller influence dominates not 
only banks and trust companies whose capital is more than 
$400,000,000, the famous Standard Oil Company with a capital 
of $100,000,000, the Lackawanna Steel Company worth $60,000,- 
000, and the gas companies of New York worth $147,000,000, 
but also the St. Paul Railroad, which is capitalized at $230,000,000, 
the Missouri, Kansas and Texas at $148,000,000, and the Missouri 
Pacific at $212,000,000. 

It is certainly true that such tremendous influence under present 
conditions can be gotten only by men who actually own a huge 
capital. And yet the essential economic feature is always the 
consolidation of control, which is found necessary in every province 
of industry, and which entirely overtops the question of ownership. 
It has been estimated that the twenty-four directors of the United 
States Steel Company exert a controlling influence in two hundred 
other corporations; that back of them are the largest banks in the 
whole country, about half the railroads, the largest coal, oil, and 



TRUST QUESTION 30s 

electric companies, and the leading telegraph, express, and life- 
insurance companies, etc. They control corporations with a 
capital of nine billions of dollars: and such consolidation is not 
to be undone by any artificial devices of legislation. 

If economic life, by reason of the dimensions which it has 
assumed in the last decades, requires this welding together of 
interests in every department, then the formation of syndicates 
and trusts is only a phase in the necessary development; and to 
prevent the formation of trusts would affect the form, and not the 
essence of the movement. Indeed, the form has already changed a 
number of times. The earliest trusts were so organized that a 
number of stock companies united as such and intrusted their 
business to a new company, which was the "trust." That 
system was successfully abolished; the trust itself seemed unassail- 
able, but the state could revoke the charters of the subsidiary 
companies, because by the law of most states these latter might 
continue only so long as they carried on the functions named in 
their charters; that is, so long as they carried on the transaction 
of their affairs themselves. A stock company has not the right, 
possessed by an individual, to intrust its property to another. 
And if the stock companies which came together into a trust 
were dissolved, the trust did not exist. In this way the State 
of New York proceeded against the Sugar Trust, Ohio against the 
Standard Oil Company, and Illinois against the Chicago Gas 
Company. 

But the course of events has shown that nothing was gained 
by this. Although it was recognized that corporations could not 
legally combine to form a trust, nevertheless the stockholders 
controlling the stock of separate companies could join as in- 
dividuals and contribute their personal holdings to a new company 
which was virtually a trust; and in this form the trusts which had 
been demolished were at once reorganized. Moreover, of course 
any number of stock companies can simply dissolve and merge 
into one large company, or they may keep their individuality 
but make important trade agreements with one another, and so 
indirectly fulfil the purposes of a trust. In short, the ways of 
bringing assenting industrial enterprises under one management 
and so of virtually making a given industry into a monopoly, 
are manifold. 



^o6 THE AMERICANS 

To promote the development of trusts, there was nothing 
necessary but success at the outset. If the first trusts were suc- 
cessful, the device would be imitated so long as there was any 
prospect of profit. It really happened that this imitation went 
on finally as a sort of mania, where no special saving of profits 
could be predicted; one trust followed another, and the year 1903 
saw 233 purely industrial trusts incorporated, of which 31 had a 
capital of over ^50,000,000 each, and of which the total capital- 
ization was over nine billions. 

At first sight it might look as if this movement would be really 
sympathetic to the American people in general. The love of 
size generated in the nation by the lavishness of nature must 
welcome this consolidation of interest, and the strong spirit of 
self-initiative claiming the right of individuals to unite and work 
together must surely favour all sorts of co-operation. As a fact 
now an opposite tendency operates, which after all springs from 
the same spirit of self-initiative. The freely acting individual 
must not be prevented by a stronger force from using the strength 
he has. Everything which excludes free competition and makes 
the individual economically helpless seems immoral to the Ameri- 
can. That is old Anglo-Saxon law. 

The common law of England has at all times condemned 
agreements which tend toward monopoly, and this view dominates 
the American mind with a force quite surprising to the European 
who has become accustomed at least to monopolies owned by the 
state. The laws of almost all the separate states declare agree- 
ments tending toward a monopoly to be illegal; and federal legis- 
lation, in its anti-trust measures of 1887 and 1890, has seconded 
this idea without doing more than formulating the national idea 
of justice. The law of the country forbids, for instance, all 
agreements looking to the restriction of trade between different 
states of the country or with foreign nations. Senator Foraker, 
in February, 1904, called down public displeasure by proposing 
a law which permitted such agreements restricting commerce so 
long as the restriction was reasonable. It was feared at once 
that the courts would think themselves justified in excusing 
every sort of restraint and monopolistic hindrance. And yet 
there is no doubt that the interpretation of what should constitute 
" restriction " to commerce was quite as arbitrary a matter as the 



TRUST QUESTION 30^ 

interpretation of what should be "reasonable." Indeed, the 
economic consolidation of competing organizations by no means 
necessarily cuts off the beneficent effects of competition. When, 
for instance, the Northern Securities Company united several 
parallel railway lines, it asserted justly that the several roads 
under their separate corps of officials would still compete for pub- 
lic favour. Yet the public and the court objected to the consoli- 
dation. The one real hindrance to the propagation of trusts lies 
in this general dread of every artificial check to free competition. 

Many circumstances which have favoured the formation of 
trusts are obvious. In the first place, the trust can carry on busi- 
ness more cheaply than the component companies individually. 
The general administration is simplified by doing away with 
parallel positions, and all expenses incident to business compe- 
tition are saved. Then, too, it can make larger profits since when 
competition stops, the fixing of prices lies quite with itself. This 
is of course not true, in so far as other countries are able to com- 
pete; but here comes in the function of the protective tariff, which 
permits the trust to raise its prices until they equal those of 
foreign markets plus the tariff. 

The good times which America has enjoyed for some years 
have also favoured the development of trusts. When the harvests 
are good and the factories all busy, high prices are readily paid. 
The trusts can do even better than single companies by shutting 
down unprofitable plants and adapting the various remaining 
plants for mutual co-operation. Then, too, their great resources 
enable them to procure the best business intelligence. In addition 
to all this came a series of favourable external circumstances. 
First was the rapid growth of American capital which was seek- 
ing investment. In the seventies, the best railroad companies 
had to pay a rate of 7 per cent, in order to attract investors; now 
they pay 3I per cent. Capital lies idle in great quantities and 
accumulates faster than it can find investment. This has neces- 
sarily put a premium on the organization of new trusts. Then, 
too, there was the well-known uniformity of the market, so char- 
acteristic of America. The desire to imitate on the one side, and 
patience and good nature on the other, give to this tremendous 
region of consumption extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
Ocean a uniformity of demand which greatly favours manufacture 



3o8 THE AMERICANS 

on a gigantic scale. This is in sharp contrast with the diversity 
of requirements in Europe. 

It has been, doubtless, also important that the American feels 
relatively little attached to his special business. Just as he loves 
his Fatherland really as a conception, as an ideal system, but 
feels less bound to the special piece of soil where he was born 
and will leave his own farm if he is a farmer and go westward in 
search of better land, so the American passionately loves business 
as a method, without being over attached to his own particular 
firm. If the opening is favourable, he gives up his business 
readily to embark on another, just as he gives up an old-fashioned 
machine in favour of an improved one. 

Just this quality of mind is so different from the German that 
here would be probably the greatest hindrance to the organi- 
zation of trusts in Germany. The German feels himself to have 
grown up in his special business, which he may have inherited 
from his father, just as the peasant has grown up on his farm, 
and he does not care to become the mere employee of a large 
trust. Another contributory mental trait has been the friendly 
confidence which the American business man puts in his neighbour. 
The name is here appropriate; the trusts in fact repose to a high 
degree on mutual trust, and trusts like the American could not 
develop wherever there should be mutual distrust or jealousy in 
the business world. Finally, the laws themselves have been favour- 
able, in so far as they have favoured the issue of preferred stock 
in a way very convenient to trusts, but one which would not have 
been approved in Europe. And, moreover, the trusts have made 
considerable use of the diversity existing between the laws of 
different states. 

There have been retarding factors, too. We have mentioned 
the most important of all — the legal discountenance of all busi- 
ness agreements tending to create a monopoly or to restrain trade. 
There have been others, however. One purpose of the trusts 
is to put prices up and so to make the necessities of life dearer. 
It is the people who pay the prices — the same people who elect 
Congress and determine the tariffs and the laws; so that every 
trust works in the knowledge that putting up prices tends im- 
mediately to work back on business by calling forth tariff revision 
and anti-trust laws. 



TRUST QUESTION 309 

One source of great profit to the trusts has been the possibility 
of restricting output. This method promised gain where natural 
products were in question, such as oil, tobacco, and sugar, of which 
the quantity is limited, and further for all technical patents. 
Where, however, there is no such limitation the most powerful 
corporation will not be able to avoid competition, and if it tries 
to buy up competing factories to stop such competition, still more 
are built at once, solely with the purpose of extorting a high 
ransom from the trusts; and this game is ruinous. In other 
departments again consolidation of business means very little 
economy; Morgan's marine trust is said not to have succeeded 
for this reason. In short, not all industries are susceptible 
of being organized as trusts, and the dazzling profits of certain 
favoured trusts too easily misled those who were in pursuit of for- 
tune into forgetting the difference between different businesses. 
Trusts were formed where they could not be profitable. Perhaps 
the real founders themselves did not overlook the difference; but 
they counted on the great hungry public to overlook it, until at 
least most of the shares should have been disposed of. 

As a fact, however, the reluctance of the great investing public 
has been a decidedly restraining factor too. The securities spoiled 
before the public had absorbed them; everywhere the complaint 
went up of undigested securities. The public came early to 
suspect that the promoters were making their profits not out of 
the legitimate economies to be saved by the trusts, but by enor- 
mously overcapitalizing them and taking large blocks of stock 
for themselves. 

There was still another unfavourable influence on public opinion. 
The main profits of a protected trust lie in its being able to sell 
more dearly than it could if exposed to foreign competition. But 
now if the consolidated industry itself proposes to sell to other 
countries, it must of course step down to the prevailing level of 
prices. It must therefore sell more cheaply abroad than at home. 
But this is soon found out, and creates a very unfavourable impres- 
sion. The American is willing to pay high prices, as far as that 
goes; but when he has to pay a price double what the same factory 
charges for the same goods when delivered in Europe, he finds the 
thing wholly unnatural, and will protest at the next election. Thus 
there have been plenty of factors to counteract the favourable con- 



J70 THE AMERICANS 

ditions, and the history of trusts has certainly not been for their 
promoters a simple tale of easy profits. 

Now, if we do not ask what has favoured or hindered the trusts, 
nor how they have benefited or jeopardized their founders, but 
rather look about to see what their effect on the nation has been 
and will be, some good features appear at once. However much 
money may have been lost, or rather, however fictitious values 
may have been wiped out in the market, the great enterprises 
are after all increasing the productive capacity of the nation and 
its industrial strength in the fight with other peoples. They give 
a broad scope to business, and bring about relations and mutual 
adaptations which would never have developed in the chaotic 
struggling of small concerns. They produce at the same time 
by the concentration of control an inner solidarity which allows one 
part to function for another in case there are hindrances or disas- 
ters to any part of the great organism, and this is undoubtedly a 
tremendous factor for the general good. A mischance which, 
under former conditions, would have been disastrous can be 
survived now under this system of mutual interdependence: thus 
it can hardly be doubted that the combined action of the banks 
in the year 1903 prevented a panic; since, when stocks began to 
fall, the banks were able to co-operate as they would not have been 
able previously to their close aiSliation. 

Furthermore, economic wealth can now be created more advan- 
tageously for the nation. The saving of funds which were for- 
merly spent in direct competition is a true economy, and the trusts 
have asserted again and again that as a matter of fact they do 
not put up prices, but that they make sufficient profits in saving 
what had formerly been wasted in business hostilities. Certainly 
the trusts make it possible to isolate useless or superannuated 
plants, without causing a heavy loss to the owners, and thus the 
national industry is even more freely adaptable to changing 
circumstances than before; and this advantage accrues to the 
entire country. The spirit of enterprise is remarkably encouraged 
and the highest premiums are put on individual achievement. 
Almost all the men who hold responsible positions in the mam- 
moth works of the Steel Trust have worked up, like Carnegie 
himself, from the bottom of the ladder, and made their millions 
simply by working better than their fellows. 



TRUST QUESTION 311 

On the other hand, the trusts have their drawbacks. One of 
the most regrettable to the American mind is their moral effect. 
The American distrusts such extreme concentration of power 
and capital; it looks toward aristocracy, oligarchy, and tyranny. 
At the same time the masses are demoralized, and in very many 
cases individual initiative is strangled. There are, as it were, 
nothing but officials obeying orders; no men acting wholly on 
their own responsibility. Work ceases to be a pleasure, because 
everything goes by clock-work; the trust supersedes the inde- 
pendent merchant and manufacturer just as the machine has 
superseded the independent artisan. 

The trusts have other demoralizing effects. Their resources 
are so tremendous as in the end to do away with all opposition. 
The independent man who hopes to oppose the great rival, can 
too easily be put in a position in which he is made to choose 
between beggary and the repudiation of all his principles. Every- 
body knows the shameless history of the Standard Oil Company, 
which has strangled not merely weak proprietors, but, much more, 
has strangled strong consciences. Then, too, the whole system of 
over-capitalization is immoral. Large trusts can hardly be 
formed except by purchasing the subsidiary companies at fancy 
prices, and issuing stock which in large part represents the pre- 
mium paid to the promoters. Indeed, this whole system of com- 
munity of interests which puts thousands of corporations into 
the hands of a few men who everywhere play into one another's 
hands, must bring it about that these men will soon grow care- 
less and overlook one another's irregularities in a way which 
will threaten sober business traditions. The whole country was 
shocked on hearing the revelations of the Shipbuilding Trust, 
and seeing with what criminal carelessness the organization went 
on in a little group of friends, and how the methods of poker- 
playing were applied to transactions of great moment. The 
fundamental objection, however, is always that it is immoral to 
kill competition by agreements which create a monopoly. 

Now, what can be done to obviate these evils ? Apparently 
the first thing would be a revision of the tariff; and yet even their 
opponents must agree that there is only an indirect relation 
between the protective tariff and the trusts. It is true that the 
high tariffs have helped to create those industries which have now 



^12 THE AMERICANS 

come together In trusts, and if the industries were to be wiped out, 
of course there would be nothing left of consolidations. But it 
is surely not true that the trusts are the immediate effect of the 
tariflF, and the more a revised tariff were to let m foreign com- 
petition so much the more would the national industries need to 
form themselves into trusts for the sake of the benefits of con- 
solidated management. All the business advantages and all 
the moral evils of trusts would still remain, even though the 
dividends were to sink. And the trusts would not be carried off 
the field unless American industry itself should utterly succumb 
to the foreign enemy. 

Most of all, however, it seems clear that any policy prejudicial 
to the conditions of production and distribution would first of all, 
and most sadly, hit the competitors of the trusts. There is no 
absolute monopoly in any American industry. Indeed, even the 
Sugar Refining Company has a few outside competitors, and 
there is a legion of independent producers outside of the Steel 
Trust who are themselves in part organized in groups, and in 
many industries the trusts do not comprise even half of the manu- 
facturers. Now, if the high tariff wall should be torn down so 
that a flood of cheap foreign manufactures could come in, it is 
certain that the first sufferers would be the small independent 
companies, which would be drowned out, while the mighty trusts 
would swim for a long time. Indeed, the destruction of such 
home competition would greatly benefit the trusts. Some of 
the strongest of these would hardly be reached at all by a reduction 
of the tariff — as, for instance, the strongest of them, the Petroleum 
Trust, which does not enjoy any protection. And it is also to be 
asked if trusts do not prosper in free-trade England ? So soon as 
the water is squeezed out of their stocks, as has in good part lately 
happened, the trusts would still have a great advantage after 
protective duties should be abolished. And at the same time the 
necessary depression of wages which would result from that 
movement would endanger the whole industrial fabric. More- 
over, the social and moral evils of the trusts would persist. 
Therefore the Republican party, which is just now in power, will 
take no part in solving the trust question by reducing the tariff. 

Those Republicans who oppose the trusts are much more in- 
clined to proceed to federal legislation. President Roosevelt has, 



TRUST QUESTION 313 

in a number of speeches which are among the most significant 
contributions to the whole discussion, pointed to this way again 
and again. The situation is compHcated and has shifted from 
time to time. The real difficulty lies in the double system of 
legislative power which we have already explicitly described. 
We have seen that all legislative power which is not expressly 
conferred on the Union belongs to the several states; specially has 
each state the right to regulate the commercial companies to which 
it has given charters. But if the company is such a one as operates 
between several states — as, for instance, one which transports 
goods from one state to another — it is regulated by federal 
law. Now, as long ago as the year 1890, in the so-called Sherman 
Act, Congress passed draconic regulations against interstate 
trusts. The law threatens with fine and imprisonment any 
party to a contract which restricts interstate commerce. It can 
be said of this law that it entirely did away with the trusts in their 
original form, in which the various companies themselves com- 
posed the trust. At the same time the federal officials were 
strongly seconded by the judicial doings of the separate states, 
as we have already seen. But the effect has only been to drive 
industry into new forms, and forms which are not amenable to 
federal regulations, but fall under the jurisdiction of the separate 
states. Corporations were formed which have their home in a 
certain state, but which by the tremendous capital of their members 
have been able to acquire factories distributed all through the 
country. Indeed, they are not real trusts any more, and the name 
is kept up only because the new corporations have descended 
from trusts and accomplish the same purpose. 

Of course, this change would have been of no advantage for the 
several companies if the stern spirit shown by Congress in this 
legislation had been manifested once more by the separate states, 
that is, if each separate state had forbidden what the Union had 
forbidden; but so long as a single state in the whole forty-five 
permitted greater freedom to business than the others, of course 
all new companies would be careful to seek out that state and 
settle there. And, what was more important, would there pay 
taxes — a fact which tended to persuade every state to enact 
convenient trust laws. 

Now, it is not a question between one state and forty-four 



SI4 THE AMERICANS 

others, but rather between the diversities of all the forty-five. 
Almost every state has its peculiar provisions, and if its laws are 
favourable to the trusts this is because, as each state says, if 
it were to stand on high moral grounds it would only hurt 
itself by driving away profitable trusts, and would not benefit 
the whole country, because the trusts would simply fly away and 
roost in some other state. More especially the industrially back- 
ward Western States would be always ready to entertain the trusts 
and pass most hospitable laws, for the sake of the revenue which 
they could thereby get for their local purposes. And so it is 
quite hopeless to expect the trusts to be uprooted by the legis- 
lation of the separate states. If all forty-five states were to pass 
laws such as govern stock companies in Massachusetts, there 
would be no need of further legislation; and it is also no accident, 
of course, that there are very few trusts in the State of New York. 
All the great trusts whose directors reside in the metropolis have 
their official home across the river in the State of New Jersey, 
which has made great concessions to the companies. 

If these companies are to be reached by law, the surest way 
seems to be by taking a radical step and removing the supervision 
of large stock companies from the single states, and transferring 
it to the federal government; this is the way which President 
Roosevelt has repeatedly recommended. In our political section 
we have explicitly shown that such a change cannot be introduced 
by an act of Congress, but only by an amendment to the Consti- 
tution, which cannot be made by Congress, since it is in itself a 
product of the Constitution. Congress would be able only to 
take the initiative, and two-thirds of both houses would have to 
support the proposition to change the Constitution; and this 
change would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the state 
legislatures themselves. Now, it would be difficult to get a two- 
thirds majority in both houses on any question hostile to trusts; 
but it is quite out of the question to induce the three-fourths of 
the states to cripple their own rights in so important a matter 
as the regulation of stock companies; particularly as in economic 
matters local power is necessary to local optimism, and the weaker 
states would never consent to give up such rights, since they would 
be forced to see industrial laws framed according to the require- 
ments of the more highly developed states. Was the President, 



TRUST QUESTION 315 

then, in his speeches, like Don Quixote, tilting against the wind- 
mills; or was he proposing, as some of his opponents said, quite 
impracticable solutions in order to divert attention from such 
a handy solution as that of tariff reduction ? And was he declaim- 
ing loudly against the trusts before the public in order really to 
help on the friends of capital ? 

Perhaps another point of view may be found. It may be that 
President Roosevelt proposed a constitutional amendment in 
order to arouse discussion along certain lines, and in order specially 
to have the chance of demonstrating that federal control of those 
overgrown business enterprises is necessary, and that their con- 
trol by the several' states is dangerous. It looks indeed as if 
such discussion would have been highly superfluous if not in- 
sincere, if it were true that the sole way of helping the situation 
were the quite impossible constitutional amendment. 

But such is not the case; there is another way of reaching the 
same end without meeting the difficulties involved in changing 
the Constitution. Of course, the President was not free to discuss 
this means, nor even to mention it. This way is, we think, for 
the Supreme Court to reverse its former decision, and to modify 
its definition of interstate commerce in closer accord with the latest 
developments of the trusts. We have seen that there are drastic 
laws relating to interstate commerce which have overthrown all 
the earlier trusts; but a corporation claiming home in New Jersey, 
although owning factories in diff'erent states and dependent on 
the co-operation of several states for its output, is to-day treated 
by the Supreme Court as a corporation pertaining to one state. 
If, now, the Supreme Court were to decide that such a corporation 
transacts interstate commerce, then all the severity of the existing 
federal laws would apply to such corporations, and everything 
which could be accomplished by an amendment to the Consti- 
tution would be eff"ected by that one decision. Of course, the 
President could not suggest this, since the Supreme Court is co- 
ordinate with the Executive; yet if public attention should be 
awakened by such a discussion, even the judges of the Supreme 
Court might consider the matter in a new light. 

To be sure, this would at the same time require the Supreme 
Court somewhat to modify its previous interpretation of the Anti- 
Trust Law itself, and not merely its application; since otherwise, if 



3i6 THE AMERICANS 

the trusts come under federal jurisdiction, the law might wipe out 
the new trusts, as it did the old, instead merely of regulating them. 
In view of the recently published memoirs of Senator Hoar, there 
can be no doubt that the Supreme Court has interpreted the law 
forbidding the restraint of trade more strictly than was originally 
intended in the bill which Hoar himself drew up. Congress 
meant to refer to agreements in restraint of trade in a narrow, 
technical sense, while the court has interpreted this law as if it 
were to apply to every agreement which merely regulates pro- 
duction or sale in any place. But this unnecessarily severe con- 
struction of the law by the unexpected verdict of the court can 
of course be set aside by a further Congressional measure, and 
therefore offers no difficulty. 

The Administration might proceed in still another way. A 
good deal has been said of greater publicity in public affairs, and 
in the last few years energetic measures have already been taken 
at the instance of the President. Many of the evils of trusts lie 
in their concealment of the conditions under which they have been 
organized; and the new Department of Commerce is empowered 
to take official testimony concerning all such matters, and to 
demand this under oath. Whether this will be an ultimate gain 
is doubted by many, since those acquainted with the matter say 
that the secrets of modern book-keeping make it impossible to 
inspect the general condition of a large industrial concern when 
its promoters desire to conceal the truth. While if one were to 
go back of the books and lay bare every individual fact to the 
public eye, the corporations would be considerably injured in 
their legitimate business. And in any case, this new effort at 
publicity has so far no judicial sanction. One large trust has 
already refused to give the information desired because its counsel 
holds the Congressional law to be unconstitutional, and this 
matter will have to be settled by the Supreme Court. 

The most thoughtful minds are coming slowly to the opinion 
that neither tariff provisions nor legislation is necessary, but that 
the matter will eventually regulate itself. The great collapse of 
market values has opened the eyes of many people, and the fall 
in the price of commodities manufactured by trusts works in 
much the same direction. People see, more and more, that most 
of the evils are merely such troubles as all infant organisms pass 



TRUST QUESTION sn 

through. The railroads of the country were also at first enor- 
mously overcapitalized, but the trouble has cured itself in the 
course of time. The surpluses have been spent on improvements, 
and railroad shares to-day represent actual values. Such a change 
has in fact already set in among the trusts. Paternal regulation 
by the government, v^hich prescribes hov^ industry shall go on, is 
always essentially distasteful to Americans. Exact regulative 
measures which shall be just cannot be framed beforehand by 
any government. Even Adam Smith believed, for instance, that 
the form of organization known as a stock company was suitable 
for only a few kinds of business. The American prefers to sub- 
mit all such questions to the actual business test. All experiment- 
al undertakings are sifted by natural selection, and the undesir- 
able and unnecessary ones fall through. It is true that many lose 
their property in such experiments, but that is only a wholesome 
warning against thoughtless undertakings and against hasty belief 
that the methods profitable in one field must be profitable in 
every other. It is true that here and there a man will make large 
profits rather too easily, but Roosevelt has well said that it is 
better that a few people become too rich than that none prosper. 

The development of aflPairs shows most of all that prices can 
be inflated for a short time, but that they slowly come back to a 
reasonable figure so long as there are no real monopolies. The 
experience of the last ten years teaches, moreover, that the most 
important factor which works against the trusts is the desire for 
independence on the part of capitalists, who do not for a long 
time willingly subordinate themselves to any corporation, but are 
always tempted to break away and start once more an independ- 
ent concern. 

And comparing the situation in 1904 with that of 1900, one sees 
that in spite of the seeming growth of the trust idea, the trusts 
themselves have become more solid by the squeezing out of 
fictitious valuations; they are more modest, content themselves 
with less profits, and they are much less dangerous because of 
the competition which has grown up around them. The trusts 
which originally ruled some whole industry through the country 
are to-day satisfied if they control two-thirds of it. A single 
fundamental thought remains firm, that the development of 
industry demands a centralized control. This idea works itself 



Si8 THE AMERICANS 

out more and more, and would remain in spite of any artificial 
obstruction which might be put before it. But the opposite 
tendencies are too deeply rooted in human nature, in Anglo- 
Saxon law, and in the American's desire for self-initiative, to let 
this centralization go to dangerous limits. 

But those who will not believe that the trusts, with their enor- 
mous capitals, can be adequately restrained in this way, may 
easily content themselves with that factor which, as the last few 
years have shown, speaks more energetically than could Congress 
itself — this is organized labour. The question of capital in 
American economy is regulated finally by the question of labour. 

The Labour Question 

As the negro question is the most important problem of in- 
ternal politics, so the labour question is the most important 
in American economic life; and one who has watched the 
great strikes of recent years, the tremendous losses due to the 
conflicts between capital and labour, may well believe that, like 
the negro question, this is a problem which is far from being 
solved. Yet this may not be the case. With the negro pessimism 
is justified, because the difficulties are not only unsolved, but 
seem unsolvable. The labour question, however, has reached a 
point in which a real organic solution is no longer impossible. 
Of course, prophecies are dangerous; and yet it looks as if, in 
spite of hard words, the United States have come to a condition 
in which labourers and capitalists are pretty well satisfied, and 
more so perhaps than in any other large industrial nation. It 
might be more exact to say that the Americans are nearer the 
ideal condition for the American capitalist and the American 
labourer, since the same question in other countries may need to 
be solved on wholly different lines. 

In fact, the American problem cannot be looked into without 
carefully scrutinizing how far the factors are peculiar to this 
nation. Merely because certain general factors are common to 
the whole industrial world, such as capital, machinery, land 
values, labour, markets, and profits, the social politician is inclined 
to leave out of account the specific form which the problem takes 
on in each country. The diff"erences are chiefly of temperament, 
of opinions, and of mode of life. 



LABOUR QUESTION 319 

It is, indeed, a psychological factor which makes the American 
labour question very different from the German problem. This 
fact is neglected, time after time, in the discussions of German 
theorists and business men. It is, for instance, almost invariably 
affirmed in Germany that the American government has done 
almost nothing tow^ard insuring the labourer against illness, ac- 
cident, or old age, and that therefore America is in this respect 
far inferior to Germany. It can easily be foreseen, they say, that 
American manufacturers w^ill be considerably impeded in the 
world's market as soon as the progress of civilization forces 
them to yield this to the working-man. 

The fact is that such an opprobrium betrays a lack of under- 
standing of American character. The satisfaction felt in Ger- 
many with the laws for working-men's insurance is fully justified; 
for they are doubtless excellent under German conditions, but 
they might not seem so satisfactory to the average American nor 
to the average American labourer. He looks on it as an interest- 
ing economic experiment, admirable for the ill-paid German 
working-man, but wholly undesirable for the American. The 
accusation that the American government fails in its duty by 
not providing for those who have served the community, is the 
more unjust, since America expends on the average ^140,000,000 
in pensions for invalid veterans and their widows, and is equally 
generous wherever public opinion sees good cause for generosity. 

It cannot be doubted that the American labourer is a different 
sort of creature from the Continental labourer; his material sur- 
roundings are different, and his way of life, his dwelling, clothes 
and food, his intellectual nourishment and his pleasures, would 
seem to the European workmen like luxuries. The number of 
industrial labourers in the year 1880 was 2.7 million, and they 
earned $947,000,000; in 1890 it was 4.2 million earning 1^1,891,- 
000,000; and in 1900 there were 5.3 million labourers earning 
J^2, 320,000,000; therefore, at the time of the last census, the 
average annual wage was $437. This average figure, however, 
includes men, women, and children. The average pay of grown 
men alone amounts to $500. This figure gives to the German no 
clear idea of the relative prosperity of the working-man without 
some idea of the relation between German and American prices. 

One reads often that everything is twice as expensive in America 



^20 THE AMERICANS 

as in Germany, while some say that the American dollar is worth 
only as much as the German mark — that is, that the American 
prices are four times the German; and still others say that Ameri- 
can prices are not a bit higher than German. The large German- 
American steamships buy all their provisions of meat in New 
York rather than in Hamburg or Bremen, because the American 
prices are less. If one consults, on the other hand, a doctor or 
lawyer in New York, or employs a barber or any one else for his 
personal services, he will find it a fact that the American price is 
four times as high as the German. The same may be said of 
articles of luxury; for bouquets and theatre tickets the dollar 
is equal to the mark. It is the same with household service in 
a large town; an ordinary cook receives five dollars per week, 
and the pay of better ones increases as the square of their abilities. 
Thus we see at once that an actual comparison of prices between 
the United States and Europe cannot be made. A dollar buys 
five marks' worth of roast beef and one mark's worth of roses. 

In general, it can be said that the American is better off as 
regards all articles which can be made in large quantities, and 
worse off in articles of luxury and matters of personal service. 
The ready-made suit of clothes is no dearer in America than in 
Germany and probably better for the price, while the custom- 
made suit of a first-class tailor costs about four times what it 
would cost in Germany. All in all, we might say that an American 
who lives in great style and spends ^50,000 a year can get no 
greater material comforts than the man in Germany who spends 
a third as much — that is, 70,000 marks. On the other hand, the 
man who keeps house with servants, but without luxuries, spend- 
ing, say, $5,000 a year, lives about like a man in Germany who 
spends 10,000 marks — that is, about half as much. But any 
one who, like the average labourer, spends $500 in America, un- 
questionably gets quite as much as he would get with the equal 
amount of 2,100 marks in Germany. 

But the more skilled artisan gets $900 on the average — that 
is, about three times as much as the German skilled workman; so 
that, compared with the wages of higher-paid classes, the working- 
men are paid relatively much more than in Europe. The average 
labourer lives on the same plane as the German master artisan; and 
if he is dissatisfied with the furnishings of his home it is not because 



LABOUR QUESTION 321 

he needs more chairs and tables, but because he has a fancy for 
a new carpet or a new bath-tub. In this connection we are 
speaking always of course of the real American, not the recent 
immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, who are herded 
together in the worst parts of large cities, and who sell their labour 
at the lowest rate. The native American labourer and the better 
class of German and Irish immigrants are well clothed and fed 
and read the newspapers, and only a small part of their wages 
goes for liquor. 

More important than the economic prosperity of the American 
working-man, though not wholly independent of it, is the social 
self-respect which he enjoys. The American working-man feels 
himself to be quite the equal of any other citizen, and this not 
merely in the legal sense. This results chiefly from the intense 
political life of the country and the democratic form of govern- 
ment, which knows no social prerogatives. It results also from 
the absence of social caste. There is a considerable class feeling, 
but no artificial lines which hinder any man from working up 
into any position. The most modest labourer knows that he may, 
if he is able, work up to a distinguished position in the social 
structure of the nation. 

And the most important thing of all is probably the high value 
put on industry as such. We have spoken of this in depicting the 
spirit of self-initiative. In fact, the back-ground of national con- 
ceptions as to the worth of labour must be the chief factor in deter- 
mining the social condition of the working-man. When a nation 
comes to that way of thinking which makes intellectual activities 
the whole of its culture, while economic life merely serves the 
function of securing the outward comforts of the nation as 
it stretches on toward its goal of culture, then the industrial 
classes must content themselves with an inferior position, and 
those who do bodily labour, with the least possible amount of 
personal consideration. But when a nation, on the other hand, 
believes in the intrinsic worth of industrial culture, then the labour 
by which a man lives becomes a measure of his moral worth, 
and even intellectual eflPort finds its immediate ethical justification 
only in ministering to the complex social life; that is, only so far 
as it is industry. 

Such now is the conception of the American. Whether a 



^22 THE AMERICANS 

person makes laws, or poetry, or railway ties, or shoes, or darning- 
needles, the thing which gives moral value to his life's work is 
merely its general usefulness. In spite of all intellectual and 
aesthetic differences, this most important element of activity is 
common to all, and the manual labourer, so far as he is industrious, 
is equal to those who work with their brains. On the other 
hand, the social parasite, who perhaps has inherited money and 
uses it only for enjoyment, is generally felt to be on a lower plane 
than the factory hand who does his duty. For the American this 
is not an artificial principle, but an instinctive feeling, which may 
not do away with all the thousand different shadings of social 
position, but nevertheless consigns them to a secondary place. 
One may disapprove of such an industrial conception of society, 
and like better, for example, the aesthetic conception of the 
Japanese, who teach their youth to despise mercantile busi- 
ness and tastefully to arrange flowers. But it is clear that where 
such an industrial conception prevails in a nation the working- 
man will feel a greater self-respect and greater independence of 
his surroundings, since the millionaire is also then only a fellow- 
workman. 

Undoubtedly just this self-respect of the American labourer 
makes him the great industrial force which he is. The American 
manufacturer pays higher wages than any of his competitors in 
the markets of the world and is not disconcerted at this load, 
because he knows that the self-respecting working-man equalizes 
the diff^erence of price by more intense and intelligent labour. It 
is true that the perfection of labour-saving machinery is a tremen- 
dous advantage here, but after all it is the personal quality of the 
working-man which has brought about that in so many industries 
ten American workmen do more than fifteen or, as experts often 
say, twenty Italian workmen. The American manufacturer 
prefers to hire a hundred heads rather than a thousand hands, 
even if the wages are equal, and even the greedy capitalist prefers 
the labourer who is worth thirty dollars a week to one who is worth 
only twenty. The more the working-man feels himself to be a 
free co-operator, the more intelligently does he address himself 
to the work. We hear constantly of improvements which artisans 
have thought out, and this independent initiative of theirs does 
not in the least impair the discipline of industry. American 



LABOUR QUESTION 323 

discipline does not mean inferiority and the giving up of one's 
own judgment, but is a free willingness to co-operate and, for the 
common end, to intrust the leadership to some one else. This 
other person is exalted to the trustworthy position of leader by the 
desire of those concerned, so that each man is carrying out his 
own will in obeying the foreman. 

Therefore, everything which in any wise savours of compassion 
is entirely out of the question for him. In fact, the friendly be- 
nevolence, however graciously expressed, intended to remind the 
workman that he is after all a human creature, perhaps the 
friendly provision of a house to live in or of some sort of state help 
for his family, must always be unwelcome to him, since it implies 
that he is not able, like other fathers of a family, to be forethought- 
ful and provident. He prefers to do everything which is neces- 
sary himself. He insures himself in a life-insurance company and, 
like anybody else, he looks out for his own interests — tries to 
improve his conditions by securing good contracts with his 
employer, by arranging organizations of his fellow-workmen, and 
by means of his political rights. But whatever he accomplishes, 
he enjoys it because he has worked in free competition against 
opposing interests. Any material benefits which he might pur- 
chase by enduring the patronizing attitude of capitalists or legis- 
lators would be felt to be an actual derogation. 

And thus it happens that social democracy, in the technical 
sense, makes no advance among American workmen. The Ameri- 
can labourer does not feel that his position is inferior; he knows 
that he has an equal opportunity with everybody else, and the 
idea of entire equality does not attract him, and would even 
deprive him of what he holds most valuable — namely, his self- 
initiative, which aims for the highest social reward as a recognition 
of the highest individual achievement. American society knows 
no unwritten law whereby the working-man of to-day must be 
the same to-morrow, and this gives to the whole labour question 
in America its distinction from the labour question in European 
aristocratic countries. In most cases the superiors have them- 
selves once been labourers. Millionaires who to-day preside over 
the destinies of thousands of working-men have often themselves 
begun with the shovel or hod. The workman knows that he 
may set his ambition as high as he likes, and to exchange his 



J24 THE AMERICANS 

equal opportunity for an equality of reward would mean for him 
to sink back into that social condition in which industry is thought 
to be only a means to something else, and not in itself a valuable 
activity. Although Bellamy may already dream of the common 
umbrella, his native country is probably further from social 
democracy than any country in Europe, because the spirit of 
self-initiative is here stronger than anywhere else, and because 
the general public is aware that no class distinctions cut it off 
from the highest positions in the country. It knows that every- 
thing depends on industry, energy, and intelligence. 

This does not hinder the working-men, in their fight for better 
conditions of labour, from adopting many socialistic tenets. The 
American calls it socialism even to demand that the government 
own railways, telegraph lines, express companies, or coal-fields, 
or that the city conduct tramways, or gas or electric-light works. 
Socialism of this sort is undoubtedly progressing, although the 
more extravagant ideas find more wordy orators to support 
them than hearers to give belief. It is also very characteristic 
that the labour leaders do not make such agitation their life work, 
but often after a few years go over to one or another civil occupa- 
tion. The relation between working-man and capitalist, more- 
over, is always felt to be temporary. A man is on one side of 
the line to-day and on the other to-morrow. There is no firm 
boundary between groups of men, but merely a distribution in 
temporary groups; and this separates the American labour unions 
from even the English unions, with which otherwise they have 
much in common. 

Many other conditions by which the American working-man's 
life is separated from the Englishman's are of an economic sort. 
It is remembered, for instance, how successful the English unions 
have been in establishing co-operative stores, while in America 
they have failed in this. The department shops in the large cities 
have been able to sell cheaper and better goods, and have been 
in every way more popular. But enough of comparing America 
with the Old World — we must discuss the actual situation in the 
New. 

The labour movement of the United States really began in the 
third decade of the last century. Of course, only the North is 
in question; in the South slavery excluded all alliances and 



LABOUR QUESTION 325 

independent movements for improving the condition of the 
manual labourer. There had been small strikes as early as the 
eighteenth century, but the real movement began with the factories 
which were built during the nineteenth. 

From the very beginning the demand for shorter hours and 
higher wages were the main issues. At the same time the Ameri- 
can world was filled more or less with fantastic notions of co-opera- 
tion, and these influenced the course of affairs. Boston and New 
York were the centres of the new movement. As early as 1825 
in New York there appeared the first exclusively labour newspaper, 
the "Labour Advocate"; it commenced a literature which was to 
increase like an avalanche. The labourers figured independently 
in politics in 1830, when they had their own candidate for gover- 
nor. But all political endeavours of the working people have 
been mere episodes, and the chief labour movements of the century 
have taken place outside of politics; the leading unions have 
generally found that their strength lay in renouncing political 
agitation. Only when legal measures for or against the interests 
of labourers have been in question, has there been some mixing in 
with politics, but the American workmen have never become a 
political party. 

At the beginning of the thirties, working-men of difi^erent 
industries united for the first time in a large organization, such as 
later became the regular form. But at the outset of the movement 
there appeared also the opposite movement from the side of the 
capitalists. For instance, in 1832 merchants and shipholders in 
Boston met solemnly to declare it their duty to oppose the com- 
binations of working people which were formed for the illegal 
purpose of preventing the individual workman from making a 
free choice as regards his hours of labour, and for the purpose of 
making trouble with their employers, who already paid high 
wages. 

The organization of the working-man and that of the employer 
have grown steadily, and the nation itself has virtually played 
the role of an attentive but neutral spectator. In the case of 
direct conflict the sympathy of the country has almost always 
been on the side of the working-man, since in the concrete case 
the most impressive point was generally not the opposition be- 
tween capital and labour, but the personal contrast of the needy 



S26 THE AMERICANS 

day-labourer and the rich employer; and the sentimentality of the 
American has always favoured the weaker classes. The nation 
however, has shown an equal amount of sympathy toward capital 
whenever a general matter of legislation was in question; that is, 
whenever the problem has seemed more theoretical than personal. 
In such cases the capitalists have always been felt to be the 
pioneers of the American nation by putting their enterprise into 
all sorts of new undertakings, applying their capital and intelli- 
gence to economic life; so that they have seemed to a greater 
extent in need of national protection than the workman, who 
may always be easily replaced by some one else. 

Considering the matter as a whole, it can be said indeed that 
the nation has preserved a general neutrality, and let both parties 
virtually alone. A change has very recently taken place. The 
new conditions of the industrial struggle make it clearer day by 
day that there are three parties to the conflict, rather than two; 
that is, not only capitalist and labourer, but also the general public, 
which is dependent on the industrial output, and therefore so imme- 
diately concerned in the settlement of differences as to seem, even 
in concrete cases, entitled to take active part. The turning-point 
came perhaps during the coal strike in the winter of 1902-03, 
when the President himself stood out to represent this third party. 
But we must follow the development more minutely — must speak 
of the labour organizations as they exist to-day, of the results of 
legislation, of the weapons employed by the labourers and those 
used by the capitalists, of their advantages and disadvantages, 
and of the latest efforts to solve the problem. Three forms 
of working-men's organizations can be discriminated to-day — the 
Knights of Labour, the independent trades-unions, and the fede- 
rated trades-unions. 

The Knights of Labour are by principle different from both of 
the other groups; and their influence, although once very great, is 
now waning. Their fundamental idea is a moral one, while that 
of their rivals is a practical one. This is, of course, not to be 
taken as meaning that the labour unions pursue immoral ends or 
the Knights of Labour unpractical ones. The Knights of Labour 
began very modestly in 1869 as a secret organization, somewhat 
like the Free Masons, having an elaborate initiation and some- 
what unusual procedures. Their constitution began with the 



LABOUR QUESTION 32/ 

motto, "Labour is noble and sacred," and their first endeavours 
were for the intellectual uplifting of the labourer and opposition to 
everything vehich made labour mean or unworthy. The order 
grew steadily, but at the same time the practical interests of dif- 
ferent groups of working-men necessarily came into prominence. 
In the middle eighties, when they gave up their secret observances, 
the society had about a million members, and its banner still 
proclaimed the one sentiment that industry and virtue not wealth 
are the true measure of individual and national greatness. Their 
members, they insisted, ought to have a larger share of the things 
which they produced, so as to have more time for their intellectual, 
moral, and social development. In this moral spirit, the society 
worked energetically against strikes and for the peaceful settle- 
ment of all disputes. 

Its pri^icipal weakness was perhaps that, when the membership 
became large, it began to take part in politics; the Knights 
demanded a reform in taxation, in the currency, in the credit 
system, and a number of other matters in line with state socialism. 
It was also a source of weakness that, even in local meetings, 
working-men of different trades came together. This was of 
course quite in accordance with the ethical ideal of the society. 
As far as the moral problems of the workmen are in question, the 
baker, tailor, mason, plumber, electrician, and so on, have many 
interests which are identical; but practically it turned out that 
one group had little interest in its neighbour groups, and often- 
times even strongly conflicting interests were discovered. Thus 
this mixed organization declined in favour of labour societies which 
comprised members of one and only one trade, so that at the 
present time the Knights of Labour are said to number only 
200,000 and their importance is greatly reduced. It is still un- 
doubted that the idealistic formulation in which they presented 
the interests of labour to the nation has done much to arouse the 
public conscience. 

At the present time the typical form of organization is the trades- 
union, and between the independent and the federated trades- 
unions there is no fundamental difference. There are to-day 
over two million working-men united in trades-unions; the number 
increases daily. And this number, which comprises only two-fifths 
of all wage-earners, is kept down, not because only two-fifths of 



J28 THE AMERICANS 

the members of each trade can agree to unite, but because many 
trades exist which are not amenable to such organization; the 
unions include almost all men working in some of the most 
important trades. The higher the employment and the more 
it demands of preparation, the stronger is the organization of the 
employed. Printers, for instance, almost all belong to their union, 
and in the building and tobacco trades there are very few who 
are not members. The miners' union includes about 200,000 
men, who represent a population of about a million souls. On the 
other hand, it would be useless and impossible to perfect a close 
organization where new individuals can be brought in any day 
and put to work without any experience or training; thus ordinary 
day-labourers are not organized. The number of two million 
thus represents the most important trades, and includes the most 
skilled workers. 

The oldest trades-union in America is the International Typo- 
graphical Union, which began in 1850. It is to be noticed at 
once that the distinction between national and international trades- 
unions is a wholly superficial one, for in the hundreds of so- 
called international unions there has been no effort to stretch 
out across the ocean. "International" means only that citizens of 
Canada and, in a few cases, of Mexico are admitted to membership. 
It has been the experience of other countries, too, that the printing 
trades were the first to organize. In America the hatmakers 
followed in 1854, the iron founders in 1859, and the number of 
organized trades increased rapidly during the sixties and seventies. 
The special representation of local interests soon demanded, on 
the one hand, the division of the larger societies into local groups, 
and, on the other, the affiliation of the larger societies having 
somewhat similar interests. Thus it has come about that each 
locality has its local union, and these unions are affiliated in state 
organizations for purposes of state legislation and completely 
unified in national or international organizations. On the other 
hand, the unions belonging to different trades are pledged locally 
and nationally to mutual support. But here it is no longer a 
question, as with the Knights of Labour, of the mixing up of 
diverse interests, but of systematic mutual aid on practical lines. 

The largest union of this sort is the American Federation of 
Labour, which began its existence in Pittsburg in 1881, and has 



LABOUR QUESTION s^9 

organized a veritable labour republic. The Federation took warn- 
ing at the outset from the sad fate of previous federations, and 
resolved to play no part in politics, but to devote itself exclusively 
to industrial questions. It recognized the industrial autonomy 
and the special character of each affiliating trades-union, but 
hoped to gain definite results by co-operation. They first de- 
manded an eight-hour day and aimed to forbid the employment 
of children under fourteen years of age, to prevent the competi- 
tion of prison labour and the importation of contract labour; they 
asked for a change in laws relating to the responsibility of factory 
owners and for the organization of societies, for the establish- 
ment of government bureaus for labour statistics, and much else 
of a similar sort. At first the Federation had bitter quarrels 
with the Knights of Labour, and perhaps even as bitter a one with 
socialistic visionaries in its own ranks. But a firm and healthy 
basis was soon established, and since the Federation assisted in 
every way the formation of local, provincial, and state organiza- 
tions, the parts grew with the help of the whole and the whole 
with the help of the parts. To-day the Federation includes 1 1 1 
international trades-unions with 29 state organizations, 542 central 
organizations for cities, and also 1,850 local unions which are out- 
side of any national or international organizations. The interests 
of this Federation are represented by 250 weekly and monthly 
papers. The head office is naturally Washington, where the 
federal government has its seat, Gompers is its indefatigable 
president. Outside of this Federation are all the trades-unions 
of railway employees and several unions of masons and stone- 
cutters. The railway employees have always held aloof; their 
union dates from 1893, and is said to comprise 200,000 men. 

The trades-unions are not open to every one; each member has 
to pay his initiation fees and make contributions to the local 
union, and through it to the general organization. Many of the 
trades-unions even require an examination for entrance; thus the 
conditions for admission into the union of electrical workers are 
so difficult that membership is recognized among the employers 
themselves as the surest evidence of a working-man's competence. 
Every member is further pledged to attend the regular meetings 
of the local branch, and in order that these local societies may 
not be too unwieldy, they are generally divided into districts when 



330 THE AMERICANS 

the number of members becomes too great to admit of all meeting 
together. The cigarmakers of the City of New York, for exam- 
ple, have a trades-union of 6,000 members, which is divided into 
ten smaller bodies. Every single society in the country has its 
own officials. If the work of the official takes all his time, he 
receives a salary equal to the regular pay for work in his trade. 
The small organizations send delegates to the state and national 
federations; and wherever these provincial or federal affiliations 
represent different trades, each of these trades has its own repre- 
sentative, and all decisions are made with that technical formality 
which the American masters so well. In accordance with this 
paliamentary rigour, every member is absolutely pledged to comply 
with the decisions of the delegates. Any one who refuses to obey 
when a strike is ordered thereby loses all his rights. 

The rights enjoyed by the members of the trades-unions are 
in fact considerable. Firstly, the local union is a club and an em- 
ployment agency, and especially in large cities these two functions 
are very important for the American working-man. Then there 
are the arrangements for insurance and aid. Thus the general 
union of cigarmakers of the country, which combines 414 local 
unions having a total membership of 34,000 men, has given in the 
last twenty years ^^838,000 for the support of strikes, $1,453,000 
for aid to ill members, 1^794,000 for the families of deceased 
members, $735,000 for travelling expenses, and $917,000 for 
unemployed members ; and most of the large unions could show 
similar figures. Yet these are the lesser advantages. The really 
decisive thing is the concessions which have been won in the 
economic fight, and which could never have been gotten by the 
working-men individually. Nevertheless, to-day not a few men 
hold off from the unions and get rid of paying their dues, be- 
cause they know that whatever organized labour can achieve, will 
also help those who stay outside. 

The main contention of these trades-unions refers to legislation 
and wages, and no small part of their work goes in fighting for 
their own existence — that is, in fighting for the recognition of the 
union labourer as opposed to the non-union man — a factor which 
doubtless is becoming more and more important in the industrial 
disputes. Many a strike has not had wages or short hours of 
labour or the like in view, but has aimed solely to force the em- 



LABOUR QUESTION 331 

ployers officially to recognize the trades-unions, to make contracts 
with the union delegates rather than with individual men, and to 
extlude all non-union labourers. 

The newly introduced contention for the union label is in the 
same class. The labels were first used in San Francisco, where 
it was aimed to exclude the Chinese workmen from competition 
with Americans. Now the labels are used all over the country. 
Every box of cigars, every brick, hat, or piano made in factories 
which employ union labour, bears the copyrighted device which 
assures the purchasing public that the wares were made under 
approved social and political conditions. The absence of the 
label is supposed to be a warning; but for the population of ten 
millions who are connected with labour unions, it is more than a 
warning; it is an invitation to boycott, and this is undoubtedly 
felt as a considerable pressure by manufacturers. The more 
the factories are thus compelled to concede to the unions, and the 
more inducements the unions thus off^er to prospective members, 
and the faster therefore these come in, the more power the unions 
acquire. So the label has become to-day a most effective weapon 
of the unions. 

But this is only the means to an end. We must consider these 
ends themselves, and first of all labour legislation. Most striking 
and yet historically necessary is the diversity in the statutes of 
diff'erent states, which was formerly very great but is gradually 
diminishing. The New England states, and especially Massa- 
chusetts, have gone first, and still not so fast as public opinion has 
often desired. In the thirties there were many lively fights for 
the legislative regulation of the working hours in factories, and 
yet even the ten hours a day for women was not established until 
much later; on the other hand, the employment of children in 
factories was legislated on at that time, and in this direction the 
movement progressed more rapidly. 

A considerable step was taken in 1869, when Massachusetts 
established at the expense of the state a bureau for labour statistics, 
the first in the world; this was required to work up every year a 
report on all phases of the labour question — economic, industrial, 
social, hygienic, educational, and political. One state after 
another imitated this statistical bureau, and especially it led to 
the establishment of the Department of Labour at Washington, 



S32 THE AMERICANS 

which has already had a world-wide influence. During the 
seventies there followed strict laws for the supervision of factories, 
for precautionary measures, and hygienic improvements. Most 
of the other states came after, but none departed widely from 
the example of Massachusetts, which was also the first state to 
make repeated reductions in the working-day. Here it followed 
the example of the federal government. To be sure, the reduc- 
tion of the working-day among federal employees was first 
merely a political catering to the labour vote, but the Federation 
kept to the point and the separate states followed. Twenty-nine 
states now prescribe eight hours as the day for all public employees 
and the federal government does the same. 

The legislative changes in the judicial sphere have been also 
of importance for trades-unions. According to Old English law 
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was conspiracy 
for workmen to unite for the purposes which the trades-unions 
to-day hold before themselves. This doctrine of conspiracy, 
which to be sure from the beginning depended largely on the arbi- 
trary interpretation of the judges, has been weakened from time 
to time through the century, and has finally given away to legal 
conceptions which put no obstacles in the way of the peaceful 
alliance of working-men for the purpose of obtaining better 
conditions of labour. They especially regard the strike as lawful 
so long as violence is not resorted to. Nearly all states have 
now passed laws which so narrow the old conception of criminal 
conspiracy that it no longer stands in the way of trades-unions. 
Other legal provisions concern the company stores. In some min- 
ing districts far removed from public shops, the company store 
may still be found, where the company buys the articles needed 
by its employees' and sells these things to them at a high price. 
But nearly every state has legally done away with this system; it 
was, indeed, one of the earliest demands of the trades-unions. 

There have been great improvements too in legislation relating 
to the responsibility of employees. The Anglo-Saxon law makes 
an employer responsible for injury suffered by the workmen by 
reason of his work, but not responsible if the injuries are due to 
the carelessness of a fellow-workman. The penalty fell then on 
the one who had neglected his duty. It was said that the work- 
man on taking up his duties must have known what the dangers 



LABOUR QUESTION 333 

were. But the more complicated the conditions of labour have 
become, the more the security of any individual has depended 
on a great many fellow-labourers who could not be identified, so 
that the old law became meaningless. Therefore, the pressure of 
trades-unions has in the last half century steadily altered and im- 
proved the law in this respect. American state law to-day 
virtually recognizes the responsibility of the employer for every 
accident, even when due to the carelessness of some other labourer 
than the one injured. 

Thus on the whole a progress has been made all along the line. 
It is true that some states have still much to do in order to come 
up with the most advanced states, and the labour unions have still 
many demands in store which have so far been nowhere complied 
with — as, for instance, that for the introduction of the Swiss refer- 
endum, and so forth. Government insurance is not on this pro- 
gramme — one point in which the American working-man remains 
individualistic. He prefers to make provision for those dependent 
on him, against old age, accident and illness, in his own way, 
by membership in unions or insurance companies. As a fact, 
more than half the labouring men are insured. Then too the 
number of industrial concerns is increasing which make a volun- 
tary provision for their employees against illness and old age. 
This was started by railroad companies, and the largest systems 
fully realize that it is in their interest to secure steady labour by 
putting a pension clause in the contract. When a workman takes 
work under companies which offer such things, he feels it to be 
a voluntary industrial agreement, while state insurance would 
offend his sense of independence. 

The state has had to deal with the labour question again in the 
matter of strikes, lockouts, boycotts, and black-lists. During the 
last two decades of the nineteenth century, there were 22,793 
strikes in the country, which involved 117,509 workers; the loss 
in wages to the workmen was ^^25 7,000,000 and in profit to the 
employers ^122,000,000; besides that ;^ 16,000,000 were contrib- 
uted to aid the strikes, so that the total loss made about ^400,- 
000,000. The problems here in question are of course much 
more important than the mere financial loss. About 51 per cent, 
of these strikes resulted successfully for the workmen, 13 per cent, 
partially successfully, and in 36 per cent, the employers won. 



SS4- '^HE AMERICANS 

Since 1741, when the bakers of New York City left work and 
were immediately condemned for conspiracy, there has been no 
lack of strikes in the country. The first great strike was among 
sailors in 1803, but frequent strikes did not occur until about 
1830. The first strike of really historical importance was on 
the railroads in 1877; great irregularities and many street riots 
accompanied the cessation of work, and the state militia had 
to be called out to suppress the disturbances in Cincinnati, St. 
Louis, Chicago, and Pittsburg. The losses were tremendous, 
the whole land suffered from the tumults, and in the end the 
working-men won nothing. When in the year 1883 all the teleg- 
raphers in the country left their work and demanded additional 
payment for working on Sunday, most of the country was in 
sympathy with them; but here too the employers, although they 
lost millions of dollars, were successful. In 1886 there were great 
strikes again in the railroad systems of the Southwest. 

The bitterness reached its highest point in 1892, when the 
Carnegie Steel Works at Homestead were the scenes of disorder. 
Wages were the matter under dispute; the company, which could 
not come to an agreement with the labour union, proposed to 
exclude organized labour and introduced non-union workmen. 
The union sought by the use of violence to prevent the strangers 
from working; the company called for aid from the state; the 
union still opposed even the militia, and actual battles took place, 
which only the declaration of martial law by the governor, after 
the loss of many lives, was able to suppress. 

The Chicago strike in 1894 was more extensive. It began 
with a strike in the Pullman factories in Chicago, and at its 
height succeeded in stopping the traffic on a quarter of all Ameri- 
can railroads. The interruption of railway connections meant 
a loss to every person in the country, and the total loss is estimated 
at ^80,000,000. The worst accompaniments of strikes soon ap- 
peared — riots, intimidations, assaults, and murders. And again 
it was necessary to call out troops to restore peace. Great wage 
disputes followed presently in the iron and steel trades; but 
these were all surpassed in inner significance by the great coal 
strike of the winter before last. 

The conditions of labour in the anthracite coal mines of Penn- 
sylvania were unfavourable to the labourers. They had bettered 



LABOUR QUESTION 335 

themselves in a strike in 1900, but the apparently adequate wages 
for a day's labour yielded a very small annual income, since there 
w^as little employment at some seasons of the year. The working- 
men felt that the coal trusts refused to raise the wages by juggling 
with arguments; the capitalists tried to prove to them that the 
profit on coal did not permit a higher wage. But the labourers 
knew too well that the apparently low profits were due only to 
the fact that the trusts had watered their stock, and especially 
that the coal mines were operated in connection with railroads 
under the same ownership, so that all profits could be brought on 
the books to the credit of the railroads instead of the mines. The 
trades-unions thought the time was ripe for demanding eight 
hours a day, a ten per cent, increase in wages, and a fundamental 
recognition of trades-unions, along with a few other technical 
points. The organized miners, under their leader, Mitchell, offered 
to wait a month, while the points of difference might be discussed 
between both parties; Senator Hanna, whose death a short time 
later took from politics one of the warmest friends of labour, 
offered his services as mediator, and left no doubt that the work- 
men would accept some compromise. 

In spite of this moderation of the working-men, the representa- 
tives of the mine owners refused in any way to treat with them. 
Their standpoint was that if they recognized the trades-unions 
in their deliberations, they were beginning on a course which they 
might not know how to stop; if eight hours were demanded to-day 
by the trades-unions, seven hours might be demanded in the same 
way next year. The employers thought it high time once for 
all to break up the dictatorial power of the trades-unions. Presi- 
dent Baer explained that trades-unions are a menace to all 
American industry. The strike continued. Now the anthracite 
miners produce five million tons every month, which supply all 
the homes in the eastern part of the country. A cold winter came 
on, and the lack of coal throughout the country brought about 
a condition which resembled the misery and sufferings of a time 
of siege. In many places it was not even a matter of price, al- 
though this was four times what it ordinarily is, but the supply 
of coal was actually used up. Schools and churches had to be 
closed in many places. And now the public understood at last 
perfectly clearly that, if the trades-unions wanted to exert their 



336 THE AMERICANS 

whole power, the country would be absolutely helpless under 
their tyranny. Nevertheless, the embitterment turned most 
strongly against the employers, who still affirmed that there was 
nothing to arbitrate, but that the workmen simply must give in. 

The workmen then put themselves on the wrong side by 
threatening with violence all men who came to take their places 
in the mines; indeed, they forced back by barbarous methods 
the engineers who came to pump out the water which was col- 
lecting in the mines. Troops had to be called, but at that moment 
the President took the first steps toward a solution of the problem 
by calling representatives of both parties to Washington. A 
commission was finally appointed, composed of representatives 
of both parties and well-known men who were neutrally inclined, 
and after Pierpont Morgan on the side of the capitalists gave 
the signal to consent to arbitration, the coal miners went back 
to work. The commission met, and some time later in the year 
1903 decided about half of the points under dispute in favour of 
the miners, the other half against them. This was by no means 
the last strike; the building trades in many parts of the country, 
and specially in New York, were thoroughly demoralized during 
the year 1903, the movement proceeding from the strikes of 
5,000 bridge builders: then too, the textile workers of the East 
and miners of the South have been restless. And at the present 
time, every day sees some small strike or other inaugurated, 
and any day may see some very large strike declared. It was the 
coal strike, however, which set the nation thinking and showed 
up the dangers which are threatening. 

The results of the coal strike had shown the friends of trades- 
unions more clearly than ever the strength which lies in unity. 
They had seen that results could be achieved by united efforts 
such as could never have been gotten by the unorganized working- 
man. They had seen with satisfaction that the trades-unions 
had taken a conservative part by putting off the great strike as 
long as possible; and they had seen that the employers would not 
have consented for their part to any arbitration. In the end not 
only many of the union demands had been granted, but, more 
than that, the policy of the trades-unions had been put in the most 
favourable light. A whole country had to suffer, human lives 
were sacrificed and millions lost, and in the end the trades-unions 



LABOUR QUESTION 337 

won their point; if the mine owners had been willing in the autumn 
to do what they had to do in winter, a great deal of injury would 
have been spared. But the trades-unions could truthfully say 
that they had been true to their policy and had always preferred 
peace to war. The majority of votes within the trades-unions 
was against thoughtless and unnecessary strife, against declaring 
a strike until all other means had been tried. Many people 
felt that the interests of that neutral party, the nation at large, 
were better looked out for by the more thoughtful union leaders 
than by such capitalisits as were the Pennsylvania coal magnates. 

On the other hand, it was felt that the most calmly planned 
strikes can lead to embitterment and violence, and the tyran- 
nical and murderous suppression of the non-union working-man. 
And here the American sense of freedom is touched. Every man 
has the right to decide freely under what conditions he shall work; 
the strike-breaker was regarded as a hero, and the trusts did their 
best to convince the world that the interference of the trades- 
unions in the movements of non-union workmen is a menace 
to American democracy. The unionists admit that it is unlawful 
power which they have used, but pretend that they had a moral 
right; they say that every working-man has a claim on the factory 
more than his weekly wage: for he has contributed to its success; 
he has in a way a moral share, which brings him no income, but 
which ought to assure him of his position. And now, if during a 
strike an outside person comes in and takes his place, it is like being 
robbed of something which he owns, and he has the right of assert- 
ing his claim with such means as any man would use on being 
assaulted. 

Capitalists turned against the trades-unions with the greater 
consternation, because these latter put not only the independent 
working-man, but also the companies, in a powerless position. 
They showed that their right to manage their own property was 
gone, and that the capitalist was no longer the owner of his own 
factory the instant he was not able to treat with the individual 
working-man, but forced to subject himself to the representa- 
tives of trades-unions. It was easy to show that while he, as under- 
taker of the business, had to take all the risks and be always 
energetic and industrious, the working-men were simply showing 
their greed and laziness by wanting shorter days, and that they 



33S THE AMERICANS 

would never be really satisfied. It was affirmed that the best 
workman was an unwilling party to the strike, and that he would 
more gladly attend to his work than to trades-union politics, and 
that as a fact he let his trades-union be run by irresponsible good- 
for-nothings, who played the part of demagogues. Every man 
who had ever saved a cent and laid it up, ought to be on the side 
of the capitalist. 

But the public took a rather different attitude, and felt that the 
group of capitalists had been revealed in a bad light by the 
strike, and when their representatives came to instruct the Presi- 
dent of the United States, in a brusque way, on the rights of 
property, the public began to revise its traditional ideas. The 
public came to see that such large corporations as were here in 
question were no longer private enterprises in the ordinary sense 
of the word; that a steel trust or coal trust cannot be such an 
independent factor in the commonwealth as a grocery shop in a 
country town. It was felt that the tremendous growth of the 
business was the product of national forces, and in part dependent 
on public franchises; wherefore, the business itself, although 
privately owned, nevertheless had a semi-public character, so 
that the public should not be refused the right to interfere in its 
management. Belief in state socialism, in state ownership of 
railroads and mines, made great progress in those days; and the 
conviction made still greater progress that the working-man has 
a moral right to take an active hand in managing the business 
in which he works. 

And so public opinion has come round to think that violence 
on the part of working-men, and refusal to treat with trades-unions 
on the part of employers, are equally to be condemned. The 
community will hardly again permit capital and labour to fight 
out their battles in public and make the whole nation suffer. It 
demands that, now that labour is actually organized in unions, 
disputes shall be brought up for settlement before delegates from 
both sides, and that where these cannot come to a solution the 
matter shall be brought before a neutral court of arbitration 
which both sides agree to recognize. 

Of course these disputes will continue to arise, since the price 
of manufactured articles is always changing; the employer will 
always try to lower wages in dull times, and the labourers will 



LABOUR QUESTION 33^ 

try to force wages up during busy times. But it may be expected 
that the leaders of trades-unions will be able to consider the whole 
situation intelligently and to guide the masses of working-men 
carefully through their ambitions and disappointments. Al- 
though the employers of labour continue to assert that, so soon as 
they are handed over to the mercies of the trades-unions, the spirit 
of enterprise will be entirely throttled and capital will decline to 
offer itself, because all profit is sacrificed to the selfish tyranny of 
the working people, nevertheless, experience does not show this 
to be true. Trades-unions are convinced that, in these days of 
machinery, too small a part of the profit falls to the labouring man; 
but they know perfectly well that they themselves can prosper 
only when the industry as a whole is prosperous, and that it cannot 
prosper if it is burdened by too high wages. Trades-unions know 
also that after all they will be able to gain their point in courts 
of arbitration and elsewhere only so long as they have the sym- 
pathy of the public on their side, and that every undue encroach- 
ment on the profits of capital and every discouragement of the 
spirit of enterprise will quickly lose them the sympathy of the 
American nation. If they really attack American industry, 
public opinion will go against them. That they know, and there- 
fore the confidence is justified that, after all, their demands 
will never endanger the true interests of capital. Capitalists 
know to-day that they will always have trades-unions to deal 
with, and that it will be best to adapt themselves to the situation. 
Many thoughtful captains of industry admit that the discipline 
of trades-unions has had some salutary effect, and that some of 
their propositions, such as the sliding wage-scale, have helped 
on industry. 

Thus both parties are about to recognize each other with a con- 
siderable understanding. They instinctively feel that the same 
condition has developed itself on both sides; on the one side 
capital is combined in trusts, and on the other labour has organized 
into unions. Trusts suppress the competition of capital, trades- 
unions kill the non-union competitor. The trusts use as weapons 
high dividends, preferential rates, and monopoly of raw material; 
the unions use the weapons of old-age insurance, free aid during 
illness, the union label, strikes, and boycotts. Both sides have 
strengthened their position by the consolidation of many interests; 



^^o THE AMERICANS 

just as the steel works are allied with large banks, railroads, 
steamship lines, copper mines, and oil companies, so the leaders of 
trades-unions take care to spread the disputes of one industry 
into other industries. 

Moreover, both parties fight alike by means of artificially 
limiting the market; and this is, perhaps, the most dangerous 
factor of all. While the trusts are continually abandoning 
factories or temporarily shutting them down in order to curtail 
production, so the trades-unions restrict the offering of labour. Not 
every man who wants to learn a trade is admitted to an apprentice- 
ship; the trades-union does not allow young men to come in while 
old men who have experience are out of work. The regulation 
of the flow of labour into the trades which require training, and 
the refusal of union men to work with non-union men, are cer- 
tainly the most tyrannical features of the situation; but the trades- 
unions are not embarrassed to find high-sounding arguments for 
their course, just as the trusts have found for their own similar 
doings. 

Things will continue in this way on both sides, no doubt; and the 
nation at large can be content, so far at least as, through this con- 
centration and strict discipline on both sides, the outcome of the 
labour question is considerably simplified. As long as the mass 
of capitalists is split up and that of working-men chaotically 
divided, arbitration is diflRcult, and the results are not binding. 
But when two well-organized parties oppose each other in a 
businesslike way, with mutual consideration and respect, the 
conference will be short, businesslike, and effective. 

The next thing necessary is simply an arrangement which shall 
be so far as possible automatic for appointing an unprejudiced 
court of arbitration in any case when the two parties are not 
able to agree. In this matter public opinion has gone energet- 
ically to work. In December, 1901, at the instigation of the 
National Civic League, a conference of leading representatives 
of capital and labour was called, and this appointed a standing 
commission to pass on disputes between employers and labourers. 
All three parties were represented here — capital by the presidents 
of the largest trusts, railroads, and banks, trades-unions by the 
leaders of their various organizations, and the public by such 
men as Grover Cleveland, Charles Francis Adams, Archbishop 



LABOUR QUESTION 341 

Ireland, President Eliot, and others, who enjoy the confidence 
and esteem of the whole nation. 

It has been objected that the millions of unorganized working- 
men are not represented, but in fact these neutral leading men of 
the nation are at the same time the representatives of unorganized 
labour. If these were in any other way to be represented by dele- 
gates, they would have to organize in order to choose such dele- 
gates. But this is just what unorganized labour does not wish 
to do. Everything looks as if this permanent commission would 
have the confidence of the nation and, although created unoffi- 
cially, would contribute a good deal to prevent the outbreak of 
real industrial wars. But there can be no doubt that the nation 
is ready to go further, and that if the two well-organized parties, 
together with the men in whom both sides put their confidence, 
are still not able to come to harmonious agreement, nor even to 
the appointment of a court of arbitration, then the nation will 
quite likely appoint an official and legally authorized board for 
compulsory arbitration. 

The example of New Zealand is encouraging in this direction, 
although the experience of a small country may not be imme- 
diately applicable to a large one. Nevertheless, there is some 
wish to imitate that example, and to disregard the outraged feel- 
ings of capitalists who predict that American industry will collapse 
utterly if the country becomes socialistic enough to appoint 
arbitrators with the power to prescribe to capital what wages it 
shall pay, and how otherwise it shall carry on business. The 
nation has learned a good deal in the last two or three years. 

A peaceable solution of the problem is promised also from 
another direction. The dramatic wars have concerned generally 
very large companies, which employ thousands of workmen. The 
whole thing has been repeated, however, on a more modest scale, 
where thousands of working people stood opposed not to large 
trusts but to hundreds of small employers, who were not separated 
from the working-men by any social cleft. Here the battles have 
often been more disastrous for the employers and their helpless- 
ness before small unions more patent. Then it became natural 
for them to imitate the example of the workmen and to form 
organizations to regulate the situation. 

The first employers' union was formed in 1890 by the owners of 



342 THE AMERICANS 

newspapers, for whom sudden strikes are of course especially 
disastrous. For ten years very few trades followed this example; 
but in the last few years trades-unions of employers have been 
quietly forming in almost all trades, and here the situation has 
been much more favourable from the outset for bringing employer 
and labourer to a mutual understanding. While the employers 
were not organized, an understanding was hard to arrive at; but 
now both sides are able to make contracts which must be in all 
respects advantageous, and one of the most important clauses has 
regularly been that disputes shall be submitted to a court of arbi- 
tration. 

Whether this solution will be a source of great satisfaction to 
the public seems doubtful, since, as soon as local employers and 
working-men close an agreement for offensive and defensive co- 
operation, the general public is left in the lurch, and an absolute 
monopoly is created. When, for instance, in a large city, all the 
proprietors in the electric trades have agreed to employ only 
union workmen, and all workmen have agreed to work for only 
such as belong to the employers' union, it is hardly possible for 
a new employer to step in as competitor and lower prices, since 
he would have difficulty in getting workmen. The consequence 
is that every house owner in the city who wants an electric bell 
must pay such prices as the employers' and workmen's unions 
have seen fit to agree on. Free competition is killed. 

The problem of so-called economic freedom is thus opened 
up again. Trades-unions are, of course, the product of free and 
lawful agreement, but one of their most important achievements 
is to pledge themselves to furnish the employers' union with a 
certain number of workmen, which is sufficient for all needs. In 
return for this they receive the promise of the employers to hire 
only members of the working-men's union. The result is, then, 
that the workman himself becomes a mere pawn, and is dealt 
about like a Chinese coolie. 

It is clear that these latest movements are able to contribute 
a great deal, and already have so contributed, to the reconciliation 
of capital and labour and to an appreciation of their common 
interests. The right is being more and more conceded to labour 
unions of controlling certain matters which relate to the discipline 
and conditions of work, and more assurance is given to the work- 



LABOUR QUESTION 343 

ing-men of permanent employment, so that they are able to bring 
up their families with more confidence and security. And cases 
of dispute are more and more looked on as differences of opinion 
between partners of equal rank. 

A good deal may still be done on both sides; especially the labour 
unions must be more strict in their discipline: they must become 
responsible for seeing that their members refrain from every 
sort of violence during wage wars, and that every violation of 
law, particularly with regard to strike-breakers, is avoided. It is 
true that labour unions have always preached calmness, but have 
nevertheless looked on willingly when individual members or 
groups of members, in their anger, have indulged in lawlessness and 
crime. This must be stopped. It was in the wish to avoid such 
responsibility that labour unions have hitherto struggled against be- 
ing forced to become legal corporations; they have not wished to 
be legally liable for damages committed by their members. But 
such legal liability will be absolutely necessary if contracts between 
the unions of employers and those of labourers are to become im- 
portant. It is perhaps even more necessary for both sides to learn 
what apparently American public opinion has forgotten, that a 
court of arbitration must really arbitrate judicially and not merely 
hit on compromises. 

The labour question is still not solved in America; but one must 
close one's eyes to the events of recent years in order to think that 
it is unsolvable, or even unlikely to be solved soon. The period of 
warfare seems in the East nearly over; both sides have found 
ways of asserting themselves without impairing the progress of 
the nation's industry. And the nation knows that its progress 
will be more rapid in proportion as both parties maintain their 
equilibrium and protect industrial life from the tyranny of mo- 
nopolies, whether of capital or labour. 



PART THREE 

INTELLECTUAL LIFE 



CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

The Spirit of S elf-Perfection 

THERE are three capital cities in the United States — Wash- 
ington the political capital, New York the commercial, 
and Boston the intellectual capital. Everything in Wash- 
ington is so completely subordinated to the political life that even 
the outward aspect of the city is markedly different from that 
of other American cities; buying and selling scarcely exist. In 
spite of its three hundred thousand inhabitants, one is reminded 
of Potsdam or Versailles; diplomats, legislators, and officials set 
the keynote. Washington is unique in the country, and no 
other large city tries to compete with it; unless, indeed, on a very 
small scale a few state capitals, like Albany, which are situated 
away from the commercial centres. Being unique, Washington 
remains isolated, and its influence is confined to the political 
sphere. As a result, there is a slight feeling of the unnatural, 
or even the unreal, about it; any movements emanating from 
Washington which are not political, hardly come to their full 
fruition. And although the city aspires to do, and does do, much 
for art, culture, and especially for science, its general initiative 
seems always to be lying under the weight of officialdom. It will 
never become the capital of intellect. 

In a like way. New York is really informed by but a single 
impulse — the struggle for economic greatness. This is the mean- 
ing and the moral of its life. In this respect, New York is not, 
like Washington, unique. Chicago makes terrific strides in 
emulation of New York; and yet, so far as one now sees, the city 
of three million dwellers around the mouth of the Hudson will 
continue to be the economic centre of the New World. The 
wholesale merchants, the banker potentates, and the corporation 
attorneys set there the pace, as the senators and diplomats in 



S48 THE AMERICANS 

Washington, and dominate all the activities of the metropolis. 
Through their influence New York has become the centre of 
luxury and fashion, and wealth the most powerful factor in its 
social life. All this cannot take place, and in such extreme wise, 
without affecting profoundly the other factors of culture. The 
commercial spirit can be detected in everything that comes from 
New York. On the surface it looks as if the metropolis of com- 
merce and luxury might perhaps be usurping for itself a leading 
place in other matters. And it is true that the politics of New 
York are important, and that her newspapers have influence 
throughout the land. But yet a real political centre she will 
never become; new and great political impulses do not withstand 
her commercial atmosphere. New York is the chief clearing- 
house for politics and industry; purely political ideas it trans- 
forms into commercial. 

This is still more true of strictly intellectual movements. One 
must not be misled by the fact that there is no other city in the 
land where so many authors reside, where so many books and 
magazines are published, or so many works of art of all kinds 
are sold; or yet where so many apostles of reform lift up their 
voices. That the millions of inhabitants in New York con- 
stitute the greatest theatre for moral and social reforms, does not 
prove that the true springs of moral energy lie there. ^And the 
flourishing state of her literary and artistic activities proceeds, 
once more, from her economic greatness rather than from any 
real productive energy or intellectual fruitfulness. The com- 
mercial side of the intellectual life of America has very naturally 
centred itself in New York and there organized; but this out- 
ward connection between intellect and the metropolis of trade 
has very little to do with real intellectual initiative. Such asso- 
ciation rather weakens than strengthens the true intellectual 
life; it subjects art to the influence of fashion, literature to the 
demands of commerce, and would make science bow to the 
exigencies of practical life; in short, it makes imminent all the dan- 
gers of superficiality. The intellectual life of New York may 
be outwardly resplendent, but it pays for this in depth; it brings 
into being no movements of profound significance, and therefore 
has no standing as a national centre in these respects. As the 
intellectual life of the political capital bears the stamp of 



SELF-PERFECTION 34.9 

officialdom, so is that of the commercial capital marked with 
the superficiality characteristic of trade and luxury. Intellec- 
tual life will originate new thoughts and spread them through 
the country only when it is earnest, pure, and deep; and informed, 
above all, with an ideal. 

The capital of the intellectual life is Boston, and just as every- 
thing which comes out of Washington is tinged with politics, 
or out of New York with commerce, so are all the activities of 
Boston marked by an intellectual striving for ideal excellence. 
Even its commerce and politics are imbued with its ideals. 

It is surprising how this peculiar feature of Boston strikes even 
the superficial observer. The European, who after the prescribed 
fashion lands at New York and travels to Philadelphia, Wash- 
ington, Chicago, and Niagara, and then winds up his journey 
through the United States in Boston, has in this last place gener- 
ally the impression that he has already come back from the New 
World into the Old. The admirable traditions of culture, the 
thoroughly intellectual character of the society, the predominance 
of interests which are not commercial — in fact, even the quaint 
and picturesque look of the city — everything strikes him as being 
so entirely different from what his fancy had pictured, from its 
Old World point of view, as being specifically American. And 
no less is it different from what the rest of his experience of the 
New World has given him. Not until he knows the country 
more thoroughly does he begin to understand that really in this 
Yankee city the true spirit of the purely American life is embodied. 

The American himself recognizes this leading position of 
Boston in the intellectual life of his country, although he often 
recognizes it with mixed feelings. He is fond, with the light 
irony of Holmes, to call Boston "the hub of the universe." He 
likes to poke fun at the Boston woman by calling her a "blue- 
stocking," and the comic papers habitually affirm that in Boston 
all cabbies speak Latin. But this does not obscure from him the 
knowledge that almost everything which is intellectually exalted 
and significant in this country has come from Boston, that Massa- 
chusetts, under the leadership of Boston, has become the foremost 
example in all matters of education and of real culture, and that 
there, on the ground of the oldest and largest academy of the coun- 
try — Harvard University — the true home of New World ideals is 



SSO THE AMERICANS 

to be found. And the intellectual pre-eminence of New England is 
no less recognizable in the representatives of its culture which 
Boston sends forth through the country; the artistic triumph of 
the Columbian Exposition may be ascribed to Chicago, but very 
many of the men who accomplished this work came from Massa- 
chusetts; the reform movement against Tammany belongs to 
the moral annals of New York, but those workers whose moral 
enthusiasm gained the victory are from New England. This 
latent impression, that all the best aesthetic and moral and intel- 
lectual impulses originate in New England, becomes especially 
deep the instant one turns one's gaze into the past. The true 
picture is at the present day somewhat overlaid, because owing 
to the industrial development of the West the emigration from 
New England has taken on such large proportions that the 
essential traits of Massachusetts have been carried through the 
whole land. In past times, her peculiar pre-eminence was much 
more marked. 

Whoever traces back the origins of American intellectual life 
must go to the fourth decade of the seventeenth century. Then 
the colonies in the Southern and Middle States were flourishing 
as well as the Northern colonies of New England; but only in 
these last was there any real initiative toward intellectual culture. 
In the year 1636, only eight years after the foundation of Boston, 
Harvard College was founded as the first, and for- a long while 
the only, school of higher learning. And among the products of 
the printing-press which this country gave forth in the whole 
seventeenth century such an astonishing majority comes from 
New England that American literary history has no need to con- 
sider the other colonies of that time. The most considerable 
literary figure of the country at that time was Cotton Mather, 
a Bostonian. The eighteenth century perpetuated these tradi- 
tions. The greatest thinker of the country, Jonathan Edwards, 
was developed at Harvard, and Benjamin Franklin was brought 
up in Boston. The literature of New England was the best 
which the country had so far produced, and when the time came 
for breaking away politically from England, then in the same 
way the moral energy and enthusiasm of Boston took front- 
rank. 

Not until these days of political independence did the true 



SELF-PERFECTION 351 

history of the free and independent intellectual life of America 
begin. Now one name followed close on another, and most of 
the great ones pertained to New England. Poets like Long- 
fellow, Lowell, and Holmes were Bostonians; Whittier and 
Hawthorne also sprang from the soil of New England. Here, 
too, appeared the intellectually leading magazines; in the 
first half of the century the North American Review, in the 
second half the Atlantic Monthly. Here the religious movement of 
Unitarianism worked itself out, and here was formed that school 
of philosophers in whose midst stood the shining figure of Ralph 
Waldo Emerson. Here sounded the most potent words against 
slavery; here Parker, Garrison, Phillips, and Sumner poured 
forth their charges against the South into the midst of a public 
morally aroused. Here, also, first flourished the quiet work of 
scientific investigation. Since the day when Ticknor and Everett 
studied in Gottingen in the year 18 15, there sprang up in Massa- 
chusetts, more than anywhere else, the custom which caused 
young American scholars to frequent German schools of higher 
learning. The historians Prescott, Sparks, Bancroft, Parkman, 
and Motley were among this number. Here in Boston was the 
classic ground for the cultivation of serious music, and here was 
founded the first large public library. And all these movements 
have continued down to this day. None of the traditions are 
dead; and any one who is not deceived by superficial impres- 
sions knows that the most essential traits of Boston and New 
England are the ones which, in respect to intellectual life, lead 
the nation. Quite as the marble Capitol at Washington is the 
symbol of the political power of America, and the sky-scrapers 
of lower Broadway are the symbol of America's economic life, 
so we may say the elm-shaded college yard of Harvard is 
the symbol of American intellectual capacity and accomplishment. 
It may seem astonishing at first that a single vicinity can attain 
such eminence, and especially that so small a part of the Union 
is able to impress its character on the whole wide land. The 
phenomenon, however, becomes almost a matter of course, if 
we put before ourselves how this world-power slowly grew from 
the very smallest beginnings, and how this growth did not take 
place by successive increments of large and compact masses of 
people who had their own culture and their own independent 



3S2 THE AMERICANS 

spirit, but took place by the continual immigration of wanderers 
who were detached and isolated, and who joined themselves to 
that which was already here, and so became assimilated. Then, 
as soon as a beginning had been made, and in a certain place 
a specific expression had been given to intellectual life, this way 
of thinking and this general attitude neccessarily became the pre- 
vailing ones, and in this way spread abroad farther and farther. 
If in the seventeenth century, instead of the little New England 
states, the Southern colonies, say, had developed a characteristic 
and independent intellectual life, then by the same process of con- 
stant assimilation the character and thought of Virginia might have 
impressed itself on the whole nation as have the character and 
thought of Massachusetts. Yet it was by no means an accident 
that the spirit which was destined to be most vital did not proceed 
from the pleasure-loving Virginians, but rather came from the 
severely earnest settlers of the North. 

The way of thinking of those Northern colonists can be admi- 
rably characterized by a single word — they were Puritans. The 
Puritan spirit influenced the inner life of Boston Bay in the 
seventeenth century, and consequently the inner life of the whole 
country down to our time, more deeply and more potently than any 
other factor. The Puritanical spirit signifies something incompara- 
bly precious — it is much more admirable than its detractors dream 
of; and yet at the same time, it carries with it its decided limita- 
tions. For nearly three hundred years the genius of America 
has nourished itself on these virtues and has suffered by these 
limitations. That which the Puritans strove for was just what 
their name signifies — purity; purity in the service of God, 
purity of character, and, in an evil time, purity of life. Filled 
with the religious doctrines of Calvinism, that little band of 
wanderers had crossed the ocean in spite of the severest trials, 
in order to find free scope for their Puritan ideals; had left that 
same England where, some time later under Cromwell, they were 
to achieve a victory, although a short and after all insignificant 
one. They much more cared for the spotlessness of their faith 
than for any outward victory, and every impulse of their devout 
and simple lives was informed by their convictions. Under these 
circumstances it was no accident that here the intellectual and 
moral ideals were not obscured by any economic or political 



SELF-PERFECTION 353 

preoccupations; but from the very outset were accounted in them- 
selves of prime importance. Harvard College was founded as a 
school for the Puritan clergy, and almost the entire American 
literature, which is to say the literature of New England, of 
the seventeenth century is purely religious, or at any rate is 
thoroughly permeated with the Calvinistic way of thought. 

Of course, externally this is all entirely changed, and it is 
almost a typical example of this transformation, that Harvard, 
once a seminary for ministers, to-day prepares not one-fiftieth 
part of its five thousand students for the clerical calling. Indeed, 
as early as the year 1700, Yale University was founded in Con- 
necticut, largely in the aim of creating a fortress for the old faith, 
because Harvard had become too much a place of free thought; 
and the great scholar of Harvard, the preacher Jonathan Edwards, 
went away from Boston in anger because it seemed to him, even 
in the eighteenth century, that the old Calvinistic traditions had 
been lost. And then finally, in the nineteenth century, appeared 
Unitarianism — a creed which became the most energetic enemy 
of Calvinism. These changes and disruptions were, however, 
rather an internal matter. They were actually nothing but 
small differences within the Puritan community. From the 
meagre days of the Pilgrim Fathers down to the time when 
Emerson in rhapsodic flights preached the ethical idealism of 
Fichte, and Longfellow wrote his " Psalm of Life," the old 
Puritan spirit remained predominant. 

One fundamental note sounded through the whole. Life was 
not to be lived for the sake of pleasure, but for the sake of duty. 
Existence got its sense and value only in ethical endeavour; self- 
perfection was the great duty which took precedence over all 
others. Among the particularly dogmatic tenets of the Calvin- 
istic theology this self-searching became, in the last resort, perhaps 
a somewhat dispiriting searching after inner signs by which God 
was expected to show somewhat arbitrarily his favour. More 
broadly taken, however, it signified rather a continual searching 
of the conscience — a conscious suppression of impure, of worldly, 
and of selfish impulses; and so in effect it was an untiring moral 
purification. And if in this theological atmosphere it appeared 
as if God had led a singularly large number of predestined 
spirits together into the New England colonies, the reason was 



S54- '^HE AMERICANS 

obviously this — that in such a community of earnest, self-search- 
ing characters a moral purity developed such as was to be found 
nov^here in the wild turmoil of the Old World. When the entire 
life is so permeated by ethical ideals, there indeed the nobler part of 
man's nature cannot be conquered by lower instincts or by the 
sordid demands of every-day life. 

Such a place could not fail to be a favourable environment for 
any intellectual undertakings. There serious books were more 
welcome than the merely amusing ones which flourished in the 
rest of the colonies. In New England more was done for edu- 
cation, the development of law and the service of God, than for 
any outward show or material prosperity. In short, the life of 
the intellect throve there from the very outset. And yet of course 
this spirit of culture necessarily took a turn very different from 
what it had been in the mother land, different from what it was 
on the Continent, and different from what it would have been if 
the Southern colonies had been intellectually dominant. 

For the Puritan, absolutely the whole of culture was viewed 
from the moral point of view. But the moral judgment leads 
always to the individual; neither in the physical nor in the psychical 
world can anything be found which has an ethical value except 
the good will of the individual. No work of culture has any 
value in itself; it becomes ethically significant only in its relation 
to the individual will, and all intellectual life has ethically a single 
aim — to serve the highest development of the individual. From 
this point of view, therefore, science, poetry, and art have no 
objective value: for the Puritan, they are nothing to accept and 
to make himself subordinate to; but they are themselves subor- 
dinate means merely toward that one end — the perfection of the 
man. Life was a moral problem, for which art and science became 
important only in so far as they nourished the inner growth of 
every aspirant. In the language of the newer time we might 
say that a community developed under Puritan influences cared 
considerably more for the culture of its individual members than 
for the creation of things intellectual, that the intellectual worker 
did not set out to perfect art and science, but aimed by means of 
art and science to perfect himself. 

Of course there must be some reciprocal working between the 
general body of culture and the separate personalities, but the 



SELF-PERFECTION 355 

great tendency had to be very different from that which it would 
have been had the chief emphasis been laid on aesthetic or intel- 
lectual productions as such. In Europe during the decisive 
periods the starting-point has been and to-day is, the objective; 
and this has only secondarily come to be significant for the 
subjective individual life. But in Puritan America the soul's 
welfare stood in the foreground, and only secondarily was the 
striving for self-perfection, self-searching, and self-culture made 
to contribute to the advance of objective culture. As a conse- 
quence individual characters have had to be markedly fine even 
at a time in which all creative achievements of enduring signifi- 
cance were very few. Just in the opposite way the history of 
the culture of non-puritanical Europe has shown the greatest 
creative achievements at the very times when personal morak 
were at their lowest ebb. 

But the spirit of self-perfection can have still an entirely 
different source. In ethical idealism the perfection of person- 
ality is its own end; but this perfection of the individual may also 
be a means to an end, an instrument for bringing about the 
highest possible capacity for achievement in practical life. This 
is the logic of utilitarianism. For utilitarianism as well as for 
Puritan idealism the growth of science and art, and the develop- 
ment of moral institutions, are nothing in themselves, but are 
significant only as they work backward on the minds of the in- 
dividuals. Idealism demands the intellectual life for the sake 
of the individual soul's welfare, utilitarianism for the sake of the 
individual's outward success. A greater antithesis could hardly be 
thought of; and nevertheless the desire for self-perfection is com- 
mon to both, and for both the increase of the national products 
of culture are at the outset indifferent. It is clear that both of 
these tendencies in their sociological results will always reach 
out far beyond their initial aims. Puritanism and utilitarian- 
ism, although they begin with the individual, nevertheless must 
bear their fruits in the whole intellectual status of the nation. 
Ethical idealism aims not only to receive, but also to give. To be 
sure, it gives especially in order to inspire in others its own spirit 
of self-perfection, but in order so to inspire and so to work it must 
give expression to its inner ideals by the creation of objects of 
art and science. Utilitarianism, on the contrary, must early set 



3s6 THE AMERICANS 

such a premium on all achievements which make for prosperity 
that in the same way again the individual, from purely utilitarian 
motives, is incited to bring his thought to a creative issue. The 
intellectual life of the nation which is informed with Puritan 
and utilitarian impulses, will therefore, after a certain period, 
advance to a new and national stage of culture; but the highest 
achievements will be made partly in the service of moral ideals, 
partly in the service of technical culture. As the result of the 
first tendency, history, law, literature, philosophy, and religion 
will come to their flowering; in consequence of the second ten- 
dency, science and technique. 

In modern Continental Europe, both these tendencies have been 
rather weakly developed. From the outset idealism has had an 
intellectual and aesthetic bias. Any great moral earnestness has 
been merely an episode in the thought of those nations; and in the 
same way, too, utilitarianism has played really a subordinate role 
in their intellectual life, because the desire for free initiative has 
never been a striking feature in the intellectual physiognomy. The 
love of truth, the enjoyment of beauty, and the social premiums 
for all who minister to this love and pleasure have been in Conti- 
nental Europe more potent factors in the national intellectual life 
than either ethical idealism or practical utilitarianism. And it is 
only because of its steady assimilation of all European immigrants 
that the Puritan spirit of the New England colonies has become 
the fundamental trait of the country, and that moral earnestness 
has not been a mere episode also in the life of America. 

There is no further proof necessary that, along with idealism, 
utilitarianism has in fact been an efficient factor in all intellectual 
activities of America. Indeed, we have very closely traced out 
how deeply the desire for self-initiative has worked on the popu- 
lation and been the actual spring of the economic life of all classes. 
But for the American it has been also a matter of course that the 
successful results of initiative presuppose, in addition to energy 
of character, technical training and the best possible liberal 
education. Here and there, to be sure, there appears a suc- 
cessful self-made man — a man who for his lack of making 
has only himself to thank — and he comes forward to warn 
young people to be wary of the higher culture, and to preach 
to them that the school of practical life is the sole high-road 



SELF-PERFECTION 357 

to success. But the exemplary organization of the great com- 
mercial corporations is itself a demonstration against any such 
fallacious paradoxes. Precisely there the person with the best 
training is always placed at the head, and the actual results of 
American technique would be still undreamt of if the American 
had preferred, before the solid intellectual mastery of his problems, 
really nothing but energy or "dash" or, say, mere audacity. The 
issues which really seriously interest the American are not between 
the adherents of culture and the adherents of mere push, un- 
deterred by any culture; the material value of the highest possible 
intellectual culture has come to be a dogma. The real issues 
are mainly even to-day those between the Puritanical and util- 
itarian ideals of self-perfection. Of course those most in the heat 
of battle are not aware of this; and yet when in the thousandfold 
discussions the question comes up whether the higher schools 
and colleges should have fixed courses of instruction for the sake 
of imparting a uniform and general culture, or whether on the 
other hand specialization should be allowed to step in and so to 
advance the time for the technical training, then the Puritans 
of New England and the utilitarians of the Middle States are 
ranged against each other. 

In fact, it is the Middle, and a little later on the Western, 
States, where along with the tremendous development of the in- 
stinct of individual initiative the pressure for the utilitarian ex- 
ploitation of the higher intellectual powers has been most lively. 
Also this side of the American spirit has not sprung up to-day nor 
yesterday; and its influence is neither an immoral nor a morally in- 
diflPerent force. Utilitarianism has decidedly its own ethics. It 
is the robust ethics of the Philistine, with its rather trivial refer- 
ences to the greatest good of the greatest number and citations of 
the general welfare. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, preached 
no mean morality, along with his labours for politics and science; 
but his words, "Honesty is the best policy," put morality on a 
level with the lightning-rod which he invented. Both are means 
toward human prosperity. Although born and bred in Boston, 
Franklin did not feel himself at home there, where for the best 
people life was thought to be " a trembling walk with God." For 
him Philadelphia was a more congenial field of activity. To-day 
there is no single place which is specially noted for its utilitarian 



3S8 THE AMERICANS 

turn of mind. It is rather a matter of general dissemination, for 
the influence of the entire Western population goes in this direc- 
tion. But no one should for a moment imagine that this utilitarian 
movement has overcome or destroyed the Puritan spirit. The 
actual state of the national culture can be understood only as a 
working together of these two types of the spirit of self-perfection; 
and even to-day, the Puritan spirit is the stronger — the spirit of 
New England is in the lead. 

All that we have so far spoken of relates to that which is 
distinctly of national origin; over and above this there is much 
which the American has adopted from other nations. The most 
diverse factors work to make this importation from foreign thought 
more easy. The wealth and the fondness for travel of the Ameri- 
can, his craze for collections, and his desire to have in everything 
the best — this in addition to the uninterrupted stream of immi- 
gration and much else — have all brought it about that anything 
which is foreign is only too quickly adopted in the national culture. 
Not until very lately has a more or less conscious reaction against 
this sort of thing stepped in, partly through the increased strength- 
ening of the national consciousness, but more specially through 
the surprisingly quick rise of native achievement. The time for 
imitation in architecture has gone by and the prestige of the Eng- 
lish romance is at an end. And yet to-day English literature, 
French art, and German music still exercise here their due and 
potent influence. 

Now, in addition to these influences which spring from the cul- 
ture of foreign nations, come finally those impulses which are not 
peculiar to any one nation, but spring up in every country out of 
the lower instincts and pleasures. Everywhere in the world mere 
love of diversion tries to step in and to usurp the place of aesthetic 
pleasure. Everywhere curiosity and sensational abandon are 
apt to undermine purely logical interests, and everywhere a mere 
excitability tries to assume the role of moral ardour. Everywhere 
the weak and trivial moral, aesthetic, and intellectual appeals of 
the variety stage may come to be preferred over the serious appeals 
of the drama. It is said that this tendency, which was always 
deeply rooted in man's nature, is felt more noticeably in our ner- 
vous and excitable times than it was in the old days. In a similar 
way one may say that it shows out still stronger in America 



SELF-PERFECTION ssg 

than it does in other countries. The reason for this is clear. Polit- 
ical democracy is responsible for part of it; for in the name of that 
equality which it postulates, it instinctively lends more counte- 
nance to the aesthetic tastes, the judgment, and the moral inspi- 
ration of the butcher, the baker and candlestick-maker than is 
really desirable if one has at heart the development of absolute 
culture. Perhaps an even more important factor is the purely 
economic circumstance that in America the masses possess a 
greater purchasing pov^er than in any other country, and for this 
reason are able to exert a more immediate influence on the intel- 
lectual life of the land. The great public is not more trivial in the 
United States than elsev^here; it is rather, as in every democracy, 
more mature and self-contained; but in America this great public 
is more than elsewhere in the material position to buy great news- 
papers, and to support theatres; and is thus able to exert a degrad- 
ing influence on the intellectual level of both newspaper and 
theatre. 

In this way, then, the tendency of the lower classes toward 
those things which are trivial may sometimes conceal the fine 
traits in the picture of the national intellectual life; just as the 
readiness for imitation may, for a time, bring in many a foreign 
trait. But nevertheless, there is in fact a clearly recognizable, 
a free and independent intellectual life, which everywhere reveals 
the opposition or the balance between Puritanism and utilitarian- 
ism, and which is everywhere dominated by that single wish which 
is common both to Puritans and to utilitarians — the desire for 
the best possible development of the individual, the desire for 
self-perfection. 

Since, however, it remains a somewhat artificial abstraction to 
pick out a single trait — even if that is the most typical — from 
the intellectual make-up of the nation, so of course it is under- 
stood from the outset that all the other peculiarities of the Ameri- 
can work together with this one to colour and shape his real intel- 
lectual life. Everywhere, for instance, one notes the easily kindled 
enthusiasm of the American and his inexhaustible versatility, his 
religious temperament and his strongly marked feeling of deco- 
rum, his lively sense of justice and his energy, and perhaps most of 
all his whimsical humour. Each one of these admirable traits in- 
volves some corresponding failing. It is natural that impetuous en- 



36o THE AMERICANS 

thusiasm should not make for that dogged persistence which so 
often has brought victory to various German intellectual move- 
ments; so, too, a nice feeling for form grows easily impatient when 
it is a question of intellectual work requiring a broad and somewhat 
careless handling. Devotion to the supersensuous is inclined to 
lead to superstition and mysticism, while a too sensitive feeling 
for fair play may develop into hysterical sympathy for that which 
is merely puny; versatility, as is well known, is only too apt to come 
out in fickle dilettante activities, and the humour that bobs up 
at every moment destroys easily enough the dignity of the most 
serious occasion. And yet all this, whether good or bad, is a 
secondary matter. The spirit of self-perfection remains the cen- 
tral point, and it must be always from this point that we survey 
the whole field. 

A social community which believes its chief duty to be the 
highest perfection of the individual will direct its main attentions to 
the church and the school. The church life in America is, for polit- 
ical reasons, almost entirely separated from the influence of the 
state; but the force with which every person is drawn into some 
church circle has not for this reason lost, but rather gained, 
strength. The whole social machine is devised in the interests of 
religion, and the impatience of the sects and churches against one 
another is slight indeed as compared with the intolerance of the 
churches as a whole against irreligion. The boundaries are drawn 
as widely as possible, so that ethical culture or even Christian 
Science may be included under the head of religion; but countless 
purely social influences make strongly toward bringing the spirit 
of worship in some wise into every man's life, so that an hour of 
consecration precedes the week of work, and every one in the midst 
of his earthly turmoil heeds the thought of eternity, in whatever 
way he will. And these social means are even stronger than any 
political ones could be. 

There is very much which contributes to deepen the religious 
feeling of the people and to increase the eflSciency of the churches. 
The very numerousness of the diff'erent sects is not the least factor 
in this direction, for it allows every individual conscience to find 
somewhere its peculiar religious satisfaction. An additional 
impulse is the high position which woman occupies, for she is more 
religiously endowed than man. And yet another factor is the 



SELF-PERFECTION 361 

many social functions which the churches have taken on them- 
selves. In this last there is much that may seem to the stranger 
too secular: the church which is at the same time a club, a circu- 
lating library, and a place to lounge in, seems at first sight to lose 
something of its dignity; but just because it has woven itself in by 
such countless threads to the web of daily life, it has cometo pass 
that no part of the social fabric is quite independent of it. Of 
course the external appearance of a large city does not strongly 
indicate this state of things; but the town and country on the other 
hand give evidence of the strong religious tendency of the popu- 
lation, even to the superficial observer; and he will not understand 
the Americans if he leaves out of account their religious inward- 
ness. The influence of religion is the only one which is stronger 
than that of politics itself, and the accomplished professional poli- 
ticians are sharp to guide their party away from any dangerous 
competition with that factor. 

The church owes its power more or less to the unconscious senti- 
ments in the soul of the people, whereas the high position and sup- 
port of the public school is the one end toward which the conscious 
volition of the entire nation is bent with firmest determination. 
One must picture to one's self the huge extent of the thinly popu- 
lated country, the incomparable diversity of the population which 
has come in, bringing many differences of race and language, and 
finally the outlay of strength which has been necessary to open up 
the soil to cultivation, in order to have an idea of what huge labours 
it has taken to plant the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific with 
a thick sowing of schools. The desire for the best possible school 
system is for the American actually more than a social duty — it has 
become a passion; and although here and there it may have gone 
astray, it has never been afraid of any difficulty. 

The European who is accustomed to see the question of edu- 
cation left to the government can hardly realize with what intensity 
this entire population participates in the solution of theoretical 
problems and in the overcoming of practical difficulties. No 
weekly paper or magazine and no lecture programme of any asso- 
ciation of thinking men could be found in which questions of 
nurture and education are not treated. Pedagogical publications 
are innumerable, and the number of those who are technically 
informed is nearly identical with the number of those who have 



362 THE AMERICANS 

brought up children. The discussions in Germany over, we may 
say, high schools and technical schools, over modern and ancient 
languages, or the higher education of v^omen, interest a relatively 
small circle as compared with similar discussions in America. The 
mere fact that this effort toward the best school instruction has so 
deeply taken hold of all classes of society, and that it leads all parties 
and sects and all parts of the country to a united and self-conscious 
struggle forward is in itself of the highest value for the education 
of the whole people. 

In the broad basis of the public school is built a great system 
of higher instruction, and the European does not easily find 
the right point of view from which to take this. The hundreds of 
colleges, universities, professional schools, and polytechnics seem to 
the casual observer very often like a merely heterogeneous and 
disordered collection of separate institutions, because there seems 
to be no common standard, no general level, no common point 
of view, and no common end; in short, there seems to be no 
system. And nevertheless, there is at the bottom of it all an 
excellent system. It is here that one finds the most elaborate and 
astonishing achievement of the American spirit, held together in 
one system by the principle of imperceptible gradations; and no 
other organization, specially no mere imitation of foreign examples, 
could so completely bring to expression the American desire for 
self-perfection. 

The topics of school and university would not make up 
one-half of the history of American popular education. In no 
other country of the world is the nation so much and so system- 
atically instructed outside of the school as in America, and the 
thousand forms in which popular education is provided for those 
who have grown beyond the schools, are once more a lively testi- 
mony to the tireless instinct for personal perfection. Evening 
schools, summer schools, university extension courses, lecture 
institutes, society classes, and debating clubs, all work together 
to that end; and to omit these would be to give no true history of 
American culture. The back-ground of all this, however, is the 
great national stock of public library books, from which even the 
poorest person can find the best books and study them amid the 
most delightful surroundings. 

The popular educational libraries, together with the amazingfy 



SELF-PERFECTION 363 

profuse newspaper and magazine literature, succeed in reaching 
the whole people; and, in turn, these institutions would not have 
become so large as they are if the people themselves had not pos- 
sessed a strong desire for improvement. This thirst for reading 
is again nothing new; for Hopkinson, who was acquainted with 
both England and America in the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, reported with surprise the difference in this respect between 
the two countries. And since that time the development has gone 
on and on until to-day the magazines are printed by the hundreds 
of thousands, and historical romances in editions of half a million 
copies; while public libraries exist not only in every small city^ but 
even in the villages, and those in the large cities are housed in build- 
ings which are truly monuments of architecture. As the influence 
of books has grown, the native literature has increased and the arts 
of modelling and sculpture have come forward at an equal pace, 
as means of popular culture. Museums have arisen, orchestras 
been established, the theatre developed, and an intellectual life 
has sprung up which is ready to measure itself against the best 
that European culture has produced. But the real foundation 
of this is even to-day not the creative genius, but the average 
citizen, in his striving after self-perfection and culture. 

Once every year the American people go through a period of 
formal meditation and moral reflection. In the month of June 
all the schools close. Colleges and universities shut their doors 
for the long summer vacation; and then, at the end of the year 
of study, according to an old American custom, some serious 
message is delivered to those who are about to leave the institutions. 
To make such a farewell speech is accounted an honour, de- 
pending, of course, on the rank of the institution, and the best men 
in the country are glad to be asked. Thus it happens that, in the 
few weeks of June, hundreds of the leading men — scholars, states- 
men, novelists, reformers, politicians, officials, and philanthro- 
pists — vie with one another in impressing on the youth the best, 
deepest, and most inspiring sentiments; and since these speeches 
are copied in the newspapers and magazines, they are virtually said 
to the whole people. The more important utterances generally 
arouse discussions in the columns of the newspapers, and so the 
month of June comes to be a time of reflection and meditation, and 
of a certain refreshment of inspiration and a revival of moral 



364 THE AMERICANS 

strength. Now, if one looks over these speeches, one sees that they 
generally are concerned with one of two great themes. Some of 
them appeal to the youth, saying; Learn and cultivate yourselves, 
for this is the only way in which you will arrive at becoming useful 
members of society: while the others urge; Cultivate yourselves, 
for there is in life nothing more precious than a full and harmoni- 
ous development of the soul. The latter sentiment is that of the 
Puritan, while the former is that of the utilitarian. And yet the 
individualistic tendency is in both cases the same. In both cases 
youth is urged to find its goal in the perfection of the individual. 



CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

The Schools and Popular Education 

THE Dutch population of New Amsterdam started a school 
system in the year 1621. The first pubHc Latin school 
was founded in Boston in the year 1635. The other col- 
onies soon followed. Clearly the English governor of Virginia, 
Berkeley, had not quite grasped the spirit of the New World, when 
at about that time he wrote home, that, thank God, no public 
schools and no printing-press existed here, and when he added his 
hope that they would not be introduced for a hundred years, 
since learning brings irreligion and disobedience into the world, and 
the printing-press disseminates them and fights against the best 
intentions of the government. For that matter it was precisely 
Virginia which was the first colony, even before Boston and New 
York, to consider the question of education. As early as 1619 the 
treasurer of the Virginia Company had proposed, in the English 
Parliament, that 15,000 acres of land should be set aside in the 
interests of a school for higher education. The English churches 
became interested in the plan, and an abundant supply of money 
was got together. Ground and buildings had been procured for 
lower and higher instruction and all was in working order, when 
in 1622 the fearful Indian war upset everything. The buildings 
were destroyed, and all thought of public education was for a long 
time given up. This is how that condition came about which so 
well pleased Governor Berkeley. But this mishap to the Virginia 
colony shows at once how the American system of education has 
not been able to progress in any systematic way, but has suffered 
frequent reverses through war or political disturbance. And it has 
developed in the diff^erent parts of the country at a very different 
pace, sometimes even in quite different directions. It was not until 
after the Civil War — that is, within the last thirty years — that 



366 THE AMERICANS 

these differences have to a large extent been wiped out. It is 
only to-day that one can speak of a general American system. 
The outsider will, therefore, come to a better understanding of the 
American educational system if he begins his study with condi- 
tions as they are to-day, for they are more unified and therefore 
easier to understand, than if he were to try to understand how the 
present has historically come from the complicated and rather 
uninteresting past. 

So we shall not ask how the educational system has developed, 
but rather what it is to-day and what it aims to be. Even the 
present-day conditions may easily lead a German into some con- 
fusion, because he is naturally inclined to compare them with the 
conditions at home, and such a comparison is not always easy. 
Therefore, we must picture to ourselves first of all the fundamental 
points in the system, and describe its principal variations from the 
conditions in Germany. A few broad strokes will suffice for a 
first inspection. 

The unit of the system in its completest form is a four years' 
course of instruction. For the easier survey we may think of a 
boundary drawn at what in Germany would be between the Ober- 
sekunda and Prima of a Gymnasium or Realschule. Now, three 
such units of the system lie before and two after this line of demar- 
cation. The son of a well-to-do family, who is to study medicine 
in Harvard University, will probably reach this line of demarcation 
in his eighteenth year. If he is advanced according to the normal 
scheme he will have entered a primary school at six years of age, 
the grammar school at ten, and the high school at fourteen. Thus 
he will complete a twelve years' course in the public schools. Now 
he crosses our line of demarcation in his eighteenth year and enters 
college. And as soon as he has finished his four years' course in 
college he begins his medical studies in the university, and he is 
twenty-six years old when he has finished. If we count in two 
years of early preparation in the kindergarten, we shall see that 
the whole scheme of education involves twenty-two years of study. 
Now, it is indeed possible that our young medical student will 
have progressed somewhat more rapidly; perhaps he will have 
reached the high school after six instead of eight years of study; 
perhaps he will finish his college course in three years, and it may 
be that he will never have gone to kindergarten. But we have at 



THE SCHOOLS 36^ 

first to concern ourselves with the complete plan of education, 
not with the various changes and abbreviations of it, which are 
very properly allowed and even favoured. 

The line which we call the great boundary is the time when the 
lad enters college. Now, what is the great significance of this 
moment f The German, who thinks in terms of Gymnasium 
and Universitat, is almost sure to fall into a misapprehension; for 
college is neither the one nor the other. So far as the studies 
themselves go, it coincides rather well with the Prima of the Gym- 
nasium and the first two or three semesters in the philosophical 
faculty of the German university. And yet even this by no 
means tells one what a college really is. Above all, it does not 
explain why the American makes the chief division at the time 
of entering college, while the German makes it when he enters 
the medical or law school. This needs to be explained most 
clearly, because very important factors are here involved, which 
bear on the future of American civilization. And so we must 
give especial attention to college and the professional schools. 
But that discussion is to be reserved for the chapter on the 
universities. For the present, we have only to deal with the sys- 
tem of instruction in those schools which prepare for college. 

And so, leaving the kindergarten out of the question, we shall 
deal with those three institutions which we have called primary, 
grammar, and high schools. Usually, the first two of these are 
classed together as one eight years' course of training. The 
European will be struck at once that in this system there is only 
one normal plan of public education. The future merchant, who 
goes to the high school and ends his studies in the eighteenth 
year, has to follow the same course of study in the primary and 
grammar schools as the peasant and labourer who studies only 
until his fourteenth year, and then leaves school to work in the 
field or the factory. And this young merchant, although he 
goes into business when he is eighteen years old, pursues exactly 
the same studies as the student who is later to go to college and 
the university. Now in fact, in just this connection the actual con- 
ditions are admirably adapted to the most diverse requirements; 
the public schools find an admirable complement in private 
schools; and, more than that, certain very complicated differentia- 
tions have been brought about within the single school, in order 



:}68 THE AMERICANS 

to overcome the most serious defects of this uniformity. Never- 
theless, the principle remains; the system is uniform, and the 
American himself finds therein its chief merit. 

The motive for this is clear. Every one, even the most humble, 
should find his v^ay open; every one must be able to press on 
as far as his own intelligence permits; in other v^ords — words 
which the American pedagogue is very fond of uttering — the 
public school is to make the spirit of caste impossible. It is to 
wipe out the boundaries between the difi^erent classes of society, 
and it is to see to it, that if the farmer's lad of some remote village 
feels within himself some higher aspiration, and wants to go 
beyond the grammar school to the high school and even to college, 
he shall find no obstacle in his way. His advance must not be 
impeded by his suddenly finding that his entrance into the high 
school would need some different sort of previous training. 

This general intermingling of the classes of society is thought to 
be the panacea of democracy. The younger generations are to be 
removed from all those influences which keep their parents apart, 
and out of all the classes of society the sturdiest youth are to be 
free of all prejudice and free to rise to the highest positions. Only 
in this wise can new sound blood flow through the social organism; 
only so can the great evils incident to the formation of castes which 
have hindered old Europe in its mighty progress be from the very 
outset avoided. The classic myth relates of the hero who gained 
his strength because he kissed the earth. In this way the Ameri- 
can people believe that they will become strong only by returning 
with every fresh generation to the soil, and if the German Gym- 
nasia were a hundred times better than they are, and if they were 
able to prepare a boy from early childhood for the highest intel- 
lectual accomplishment, America would still find them unsuited 
to her needs, because from the outset they are designed for only 
a small portion of the people, and for this reason they make it 
almost impossible for the great mass of boys to proceed to the 
universities from the ordinary public schools. 

All of this is the traditional confession of belief of the pedagogue 
of the New World. But now since America, in the most recent 
times, has nevertheless begun to grow in its social structure con- 
siderably more like antiquated Europe, and sees itself less and 
less able to overcome the tendencies to a spirit of caste, so a sort 



THE SCHOOLS 369 

of mild compromise has been made between the democratic 
creed and aristocratic tendencies, especially in the large cities of 
the East. Nevertheless, any one who keeps his eyes open will 
admit that, so far as the public school goes, intellectual self- 
perfection is in every way favoured, so that every single child of 
the people may rise as high as he will. Grammar school leads to 
the high school, and the high school leads to college. 

There is another factor which is closely related to the foregoing. 
Education is free and obligatory. In olden times there was more 
the tendency for the parents of the children, rather than for the 
general taxpayer, to pay for the maintenance of the schools. In- 
deed, there were times in which the remission of the special school 
tax was considered almost an act of charity, which only the poorest 
of the parents would accept. But now it is quite different. The 
school system knows no difference between rich and poor, and it is 
a fundamental principle that the support of the schools is a matter 
for the whole community. The only question is in regard to 
the high school, since after all only a small percentage of school 
children comes as far as the high school; and it is unjust, some say, 
to burden the general taxpayer with the expenses of such school. 

Nevertheless, on this point the opinions of those have won 
who conceive that it is the duty of the community to nurture any 
effort toward self-culture, even in the poorest child. The chief 
motive in olden times, wherefore the expenses of the schools were 
paid by all, was that the school was leading toward religion; to- 
day the official motive for the application of taxes to the main- 
tenance of schools is the conviction that only an educated and 
cultivated people can rule itself. The right to vote, it is said, 
presupposes the right to an education by means of which every 
citizen becomes able to read the papers of the day and to form 
his own independent opinion on public matters. But since every 
public school is open also to the daughters of the citizens who 
possibly want the right to vote, but do not so far have it, it becomes 
clear that the above-mentioned political motive is not the whole 
of the matter. It is enough for technical discussions of taxation, 
but what the community is really working for is the greatest 
possible number of the most highly educated individuals. Free 
instruction is further supplemented in various states — as, for in- 
stance, in Massachusetts — by supplying text-books gratis. Some 



5/0 THE AMERICANS 

other states go so far as to supply the needy children with clothing. 
The obligatory character of education goes with the fact that it 
is free. In this respect, too, the laws of different states are widely 
divergent. Some require seven, others eight, still others even 
nine years, of school training. And the school year itself is fixed 
differently in different states. 

These differences between the states point at once to a further 
fact which has been characteristic of the American school system 
from the very beginning. Responsibility for the schools rests at 
the periphery; and in extremely happy fashion the authority is so 
divided that all variations, wherever they occur, are adaptations 
to local conditions; and nevertheless unity is preserved. A labile 
equilibrium of the various administrative factors is brought about 
by harmonious distribution of the authority, and this is, in all 
departments of public life, the peculiar faculty of the Americans. 

The federal government, as such, has no direct influence on 
education. The tirelessly active Bureau of Education at Wash- 
ington, which is under the direction of the admirable peda- 
gogue, Mr. Harris, is essentially a bureau for advice and infor- 
mation and for the taking of statistics. The legal ordinances 
pertaining to school systems is a matter for the individual state, 
and the state again leaves it to the individual community, within 
certain limits of course and under state supervision, to build 
schools and to organize them, to choose their teachers, their plans 
of education, and their school-books. And at every point here, 
exactly as in the striking example of the federal Constitution, the 
responsibility is divided between the legislative and the executive 
bodies. The state inspector of schools is co-ordinate with the state 
legislature, and the school inspector of a city or a country district, 
who is elected now by the mayor, now by the council, now perhaps 
directly by the community, is a sort of technical specialist with 
considerable discretionary power; he is co-ordinated to the school 
committee, which is elected by the community, and which directs 
the expenditures and confirms all appointments. 

The responsibility for the moral and intellectual standards, 
for the practical conditions, and for the financial liabilities incurred 
by every school, rests therefore immediately with the community, 
which has to pay for their support, and whose children are to 
derive advantage. And nevertheless, the general oversight of the 



THE SCHOOLS 377 

state sees to it that neither whimsicality nor carelessness abuses 
this right, nor departs too widely from approved traditions. These 
authorities are further supplemented in that the state legislature 
is more or less able to make up for differences between rich and 
poor districts and between the city and the country, besides 
directly carrying on certain normal schools in which the teachers 
for the elementary and grammar schools are trained. 

Very great and very diverse advantages are the immediate 
outcome of this administrative system. Firstly, an interest in 
the well-being of the schools is developed in every state, city, and 
town, and the spirit of self-perfection is united with the spirit of 
self-determination. Secondly, there is a good deal of free play 
for local differences — differences between states and differences 
within the state. Nothing would have been more unsuitable 
than in this whole tremendous territory to institute a rigidly fixed 
school system, as say by some federal laws or some inter-state 
agreements. If there were the same educational provisions for 
the negro states of the South and for the Yankee states of New 
England, for the thickly settled regions of the East and the prairies 
of the West, these provisions would be either empty words or else 
they would tend to drag down the more highly educated parts of 
the country to the level of the lowest districts. The German 
who objects to this on the ground of uniformity, does so because 
he is too apt to think of the great similarity which exists between 
the different sections of Germany. The only proper basis for 
a comparison, however, would be his taking Europe as a whole 
into consideration. 

If now the outward unity of this system which we have described 
is nevertheless to be maintained, it is absolutely necessary that 
this form shall be filled with very different contents. And this 
introduction of diversity is intrusted to the state legislatures and 
local authorities, who are familiar with the special conditions. In 
this way the so-called school year in the school ordinances of a rich 
state may be about twice as long as in another state whose poorer 
population is perhaps not able entirely to do without the economies 
of child labour. But the differences between the schools take 
particularly such a form that the attainments of the different 
schools, corresponding to the culture and prosperity of the state 
in which they are, and of the community, are consciously designed 



372 THE AMERICANS 

to be quite diflPerent. The remoter rural schools which, on ac- 
count of the poverty of their patronage perhaps, have to get on with 
one badly trained teacher and have to carry on four grades of 
instruction in one school-room, and other schools which employ 
only university graduates, which bring their scholars together in 
sumptuous buildings, afford them laboratories and libraries, and 
have all the wealth of a great city to back them — these schools 
cannot seriously enter into competition with each other. Two 
years of study in one place will mean more than four in another; 
and there is no special danger in this, since this very inequality 
has brought it about that the completion of one grade in a school 
by no means carries with it the right to enter the next higher grade 
of any other school. It is not the case that a scholar who has 
passed through any grammar school whatsoever will be welcome 
in every high school. This is regulated by an entrance examin- 
ation for the higher school, which will not accept merely the cer- 
tificate of graduation from a lower. 

There are still other forms of this differentiation. In the first 
place, the schools have shown a growing tendency to er.tablish 
various parallel courses, between which the scholars are a llowed 
to choose. In the simplest case there is, perhaps, on the ont^ hand 
a very practical plan of education, and a second course which is 
rather more liberal; or, again, there may be a course for thosi^ who 
are not meaning to study further, and another course for those 
who are preparing for the entrance examinations to some higher 
school. The fiction of uniformity is preserved in this way. The 
child does not, as in Germany, choose between different schools; 
but he chooses between plans of education in the same school, ai id 
every day the tendency deepens to make this elective system moi e 
and more labile. 

But the most modern pedagogues are not content even with this;, 
and insist, especially in the grade of the high school, that the make- 
up of the course of study must be more and more, as they say,, 
adapted to the individuality of the scholars; or, as others think, to> 
the whimsies of the parents and the scholars. Since, in accord- 
ance with this, the entrance examinations for the colleges leave 
considerable free play for the choice of specialties, this move- 
ment will probably go on developing for some time. It appeals 
very cleverly to the instincts of both the Puritans and the utili-. 



THE SCHOOLS 373 

tarians. The Puritan demands the development of all individual 
gifts, and the utilitarian wants the preparation for an individual 
career. Nevertheless, there are some indications of an opposite 
tendency. Even the utilitarian begins to understand that he is 
best fitted for the fight who bases his profession on the broadest 
foundation — who begins, therefore, with his specialization as late 
as possible. And the Puritan, too, cannot wholly forget that noth- 
ing is more important for his personal development than the train- 
ing of the will in the performance of duty, in the overcoming of 
personal inhibitions, and that therefore for the scholar those 
studies may well be the most valuable which at the first he seems 
least inclined to pursue. Further differentiation results from 
the almost universal opportunity to pass through the schools in a 
somewhat shorter time. It is also possible for a student to pro- 
gress more rapidly in one branch of study, and so in different 
branches to advance at different rates. 

We have over and above all these things, and more particularly 
in the large cities, a factor of differentiation which has so far been 
quite left out of account. This is the private school. The goal 
for the student who wants to advance is not the diploma of gradu- 
ation, but preparation for the entrance examinations which are 
next higher. This preparation can perhaps be obtained more 
thoroughly, more quickly, and under more fortunate social condi- 
tions, in a private school, which charges a high tuition, but in this 
way is able to engage the very best teachers, and able perhaps to 
have smaller classes than the public schools. And such a private 
school will be able to extend its influence over all education. 
Large and admirably conducted institutions have grown up, often 
in some rural vicinity, where several hundred young persons lead 
a harmonious life together and are educated from their earliest 
youth, coming home only during vacation. In such ways the 
private school has taken on the most various forms, corresponding 
to obvious needs. They find justly the encouragement of the 
state. 

This diversity which we have sketched of public and private edu- 
cational institutions brings us at once to another principle, which 
has been and always will be of great significance in American 
material and intellectual history — the principle that everywhere 
sharp demarcations between the institutions of different grades 



57^ THE AMERICANS 

are avoided, and that instead, sliding gradations and easy 
transitions are brought about, by means of which any institution 
can advance without any hindrance. This is in every case the 
secret of American success — free play for the creations of private 
initiative. The slightest aspiration must be allowed to work 
itself out, and the most modest effort must be helped along. Where 
anything which is capable of life has sprung up, it should be 
allowed to grow. Sharp demarcation with official uniformity 
would make that impossible; for only where such unnoticeably 
small steps form the transitions, is any continuous inner growth 
to be expected. We have emphasized the local differences. The 
grammar school in New York is probably more efficient than the 
high school in Oklahoma, and the high school in Boston will carry 
its students probably as far as some little college in Utah. 

The thousands of institutions which exist afford a continuous 
transition between such extremes, and every single institution 
can set its own goal as high as it wishes to. A school does not, by 
any act of law, pass into a higher class; but it perfects itself by the 
fact that the community introduces improvements, makes new 
changes, appoints better and better teachers, augments the cur- 
riculum, and adds to its physical equipment. In such ways, the 
school year by year imperceptibly raises its standard. And the 
same is true of the private school. Everything is a matter of growth, 
and in spite of the outward uniformity of the system every school 
has its individual standard. If one were to require that only such 
institutions should exist as had distinctly limited and similar aims, 
then the American would look on this as he would on an attempt 
to force all cities to be either often thousand, a hundred thousand, 
or a million inhabitants. Of course, all this would have to be 
changed, if as in Germany, certain school grades carried with them 
certain privileges. In America no school diploma carries offi- 
cially any privilege at all. It is the entrance examination, and not 
the tests for graduation, which is decisive; and if there is any 
question of filling a position, the particular schools which the can- 
didates have gone through are the things which are chiefly taken 
into account. 

We must mention one more trait which differentiates the Ameri- 
can from the German school system. The American public school 
is co-educational. Co-education means theoretically that boys 



THE SCHOOLS s7S 

and girls are entitled to common education, but practically it 
means that boys are also tolerated. The idea that the school 
should not recognize differences of sex is most firmly rooted in the 
Middle- Western States, where the population is somewhat coldly 
matter of fact; but it has spread through the entire country. It 
is said that family life lends the authority for such an intermin- 
gling of boys and girls; that, through a constant and mutual in- 
fluence, the boys are refined and the girls are made hardy; and 
that, during the years of development, sexual tension is diminished. 
It is one of the chief attractions that the private school offers to 
smaller circles that it gives up this hardening of the girls and 
refining of the boys, and is always either a boys' or a girls' school. 

Even more striking than the presence of girls in the boys* 
schools is, perhaps, the great number of women who figure as 
teachers. The employment of women teachers began in the 
Northern States after the Civil War, because as a direct result of 
the decimation of the population there were not men teachers 
enough. Since that time this practice has increased throughout 
the country; and although high schools generally try to get men 
teachers, the more elementary schools are really wholly in the 
hands of women. Men do not compete for the lower schools, 
since the competition of the women has brought down the wages, 
and more remunerative, not to say more attractive, situations are 
to be found in plenty. Women, on the other hand, flock in in 
great numbers, since their whole education has made them look 
forward to some professional activity, and no other calling seems 
so peculiarly adapted to the feminine nature. The merits and 
drawbacks of co-education and of the predominance of women 
teachers cannot be separated from the general question of woman's 
rights; and so the due treatment of these conditions must be put 
off until we come to consider the American woman from all sides. 

It is not diflScult to criticise rather sharply the school system, 
and any one living in the midst of American life will feel it a duty 
to deliver his criticism without parsimony. A system which ex- 
pects the best it is to have, from the initiative of the periphery, 
must also expect the ceaseless critical co-operation of the whole 
nation. 

In this way, then, crying and undeniable evils are often pointed 
out. We hear of political interference in the government of the 



S76 THE AMERICANS 

schools, and of the deficient technical knowledge of local author- 
ities, of the insufficient preparation of the women teachers, the 
poorness of the methods of instruction, of waste of time, of arbi- 
trary pedagogical experiments, and of much else. In every re- 
proach there is a kernel of truth. The connection of the schools 
with politics is in a certain sense unavoidable, since all city govern- 
ment is a party government. And the attempts to separate elec- 
tions for the school committee entirely from politics will probably, 
for a long time yet, meet with only slight success. Since, however, 
every party is able to put its hand on discrete and competent 
men, the only great danger is lest the majority of those concerned 
misuse their influence for party ends, and perhaps deal out school 
positions and advancements as a reward for political services. 

Such things certainly happen; but they never escape the notice 
of the opposite party, and are faithfully exploited in the next 
year's election. In this way any great abuses are quickly checked. 
The secret doings, which have nothing to do with politics, are a 
great deal more dangerous. It is certain that the enormous 
school budgets of the large cities offer the possibility for a deplor- 
able plundering of the public treasury, when it is a question of 
buying new land for school-houses, of closing building contracts, 
or of introducing certain text-books. A committee-man who in 
these ways is willing to abuse his influence is able to derive a con- 
siderable profit; and so it may well happen that men come to be on 
the school boards through political influence or through a professed 
interest in school matters, who have really no other aim than to 
get something out of it. It is very hard in such matters to arrive 
at a really fair judgment, since the rival claimants who are unsuc- 
cessful are very apt to frame the opinion that they have been so 
because the successful man had "connections." 

This sharply suspicious tendency and spirit of overwatchful- 
ness on the part of the public are certainly very useful in preserv- 
ing the complete integrity of the schools, but they occasion such 
a considerable tumult of rumour that it easily misleads one's judg- 
ment as to the real condition of the institutions. In general, the 
school committees appointed in the local elections perform their 
work in all conscientiousness. It is, of course, the fact that they 
are rather frequently ignorant of things which they need to know; 
but the tendency to leave all technical questions in the hands of 



THE SCHOOLS S77 

pedagogical specialists, and to undertake any innovations only at 
the advice of the school superintendent and directors, is so gen- 
eral that on the whole things do not go quite so badly as one 
might expect. 

The preparation of the teachers leaves very much to be wished. 
Those teachers who have been educated in higher seminaries are 
by no means numerous enough to fill all the public school posi- 
tions ; and even less does the number of college graduates suffice 
for the needs of the high schools. The fact that the teaching pro- 
fession is remarkably versed in pedagogics only apparently relieves 
this defect; for even the very best methods of teaching are of 
course no substitute for a firm grasp of the subject which is being 
taught. In the elementary schools the lack of theoretical training 
in a teacher is, of course, less felt. The instinct of the teacher, her 
interest in the child, her tact and sympathy, in short the personal 
element, are what is here most important. And since all this, even 
in the superficially educated woman, springs purely from her fem- 
inity, and since the energetic women are extraordinarily eager 
and self-sacrificing, so it happens that almost everywhere the 
elementary schools are better conducted by their women teachers 
than are the high schools. 

So far as method goes, a great deal too much stress is laid on the 
text-book; too much is taught mechanically out of the book, and 
too little is directly imparted by the teacher. The teacher submits 
passively to the text-book; and the American himself is inclined 
to defend this, since his democratic belief in the power of black 
and white is unlimited. Before all, he regards it as the chief aim of 
the public school to prepare the citizen for the independent read- 
ing of newspapers and books. Therefore, the scholars are ex- 
pected to become as much acquainted as possible with the use 
of books. There is no doubt that the American school children 
read more newspapers in later life than do the European, and it 
must also be borne in mind that for the most part the text-books 
are notably good. Perhaps, in regard to attractiveness, they even 
go rather too far. In this way not only the books of natural his- 
tory, but also of history and literature, are crowded with illustra- 
tions. The geographies are generally lavishly gotten-up volumes 
with all sorts of entertaining pictures. The appeals to the eye, 
both by means of the text-books and even more by the aid of 



57(? THE AMERICANS 

demonstrations and experiments, are carried really to excess. Even 
the blackboards, which run along all four walls of the school 
rooms, encourage the teacher to appeal rather more to the eye 
than to the ear. 

Also the much-discussed experimentation with new pedagogical 
ideas is an unfortunate fact which cannot be denied. A central 
authority, which was held fully responsible for a large district, 
would of course be conservative; but where the details of teaching 
are left entirely to every local school inspector, then of course 
many shallow reforms and many unnecessary experiments with 
doubtful methods will be undertaken. The school inspector will 
feel himself moved to display his modern spirit and to show his 
pedagogical efficiency in just these ways. And many a private 
school, in order to make itself attractive to the public, is obliged 
to introduce the latest pedagogical foibles and to make all sorts 
of concessions, perhaps against its will. To-day the method of 
writing will be oblique, to-morrow vertical, and the day after to- 
morrow "reformed vertical." The pupils to-day are taught to 
spell, to-morrow to pronounce syllables, the next day to take the 
whole word as the least unit in language; and a day later they may 
be taught the meaning of the words by means of appropriate move- 
ments. 

It is not quite easy for a professional psychologist, who lectures 
every year to hundreds of students in that subject, to say openly 
that this irregular and often dilettante craze for reform is en- 
couraged by nothing more than by the interest in psychology 
which rages throughout the country. The public has been dis- 
satisfied with teachers, and conceived the idea that everything 
would be better if the pedagogues concerned themselves more 
with the psychical life of their pupils. And since for this purpose 
every mother and every teacher has the materials at hand, there 
has sprung up a pseudo-psychological study of unexampled dimen- 
sions. It is only a small step from such a study to very radical 
reforms. Yet everything here comes back in the end to the inde- 
pendent interests and initiative of the teacher; and although many 
of these reforms are amateurish and immature, they are neverthe- 
less better than the opposite extreme would be — that is, than a 
body of indifferent and thoughtless teachers without any initiative 
at all. 



THE SCHOOLS 579 

It is also not to be denied that the American school wastes a 
good deal of time, and accomplishes the same intellectual result 
with a much greater outlay of time than the German school. 
There are plenty of reasons for this. Firstly, it is conspicuous 
throughout the country that Saturday is a day of vacation. This 
is incidental to the Puritan Sunday. The school day begins at 
nine o'clock in the morning, and the long summer vacations are 
everywhere regarded as times for idleness, and are almost never 
broken in on by any sort of work. Again, the home duties required 
of the school children are fewer than are required of the German 
child, and all the instruction is less exacting. The American 
girls would hardly be able to stand so great a burden if the schools 
demanded the same as the German boys' schools. Herewith, how- 
ever, one must not forget that this time which is taken from work 
is dedicated very specially to the development of the body, to 
sport and other active exercises, and in this way the perfection of 
the whole man is by no means neglected. Moreover, America has 
been able, at least so far, to afford the luxury of this loss of time; 
the national wealth permits its young men to take up the earning 
of their daily bread later than European conditions would allow. 

When the worst has been said and duly weighed, it remains 
that the system as a whole is one of which the American may well 
be proud — a system so thoroughly elastic as to be suited to all parts 
of the country and to all classes of society. It is a system which 
indubitably, with its broad foundation in the popular school, em- 
bodies all the requirements for the sound development of youth, 
and one, finally, which is adapted to a nation accustomed to in- 
dividualism, and which meets the national requirement of per- 
fection of the individual. 

And now finally we may give a few figures by way of orientation. 
In the year 1902 out of the population of over 75,000,000, 17,460,- 
000 pupils attended institutions of learning. This number would 
be increased by more than half a million if private kindergartens, 
manual training schools, evening schools, schools for Indians, and 
so forth were taken into account. The primary and intermediate 
schools have 16,479,177 scholars, and private schools about 1,240,- 
000. This ratio is changed in favour of the private institutions 
when we come to the next step above, for the public high schools 
have 560,000 and the private ones 150,000 students. The re- 



^8o THE AMERICANS 

mainder is in higher institutions of learning. To consider for 
the moment only the public schools; instruction is imparted by 
127,529 male and 293,759 female teachers. The average salary 
of a male teacher is more than ^46 a month, and of the female 
teacher ^39. The expenditures were something over ^213,000,- 
000; and of this about 69 per cent, came from the local taxes, 16 
per cent, from the state taxes, and the remainder from fixed 
endowments. Again, if we consider only the cities of more than 
8,000 inhabitants, we find the following figures: in 1902 America 
had 580 such cities, with 25,000,000 inhabitants, 4,174,812 
scholars and 90,744 teachers in the municipal public schools, and 
877,210 students in private schools. These municipal systems 
have 5,025 superintendents, inspectors, etc. The whole outlay 
for school purposes amounted to about ;^ 110,000,000. 

The high schools are especially characteristic. The increase of 
attendance in these schools has been much faster than that of the 
population. In 1890 there were only 59 pupils for every 10,000 
inhabitants; in 1895 there were 79; and in 1900 there were 95. 
It is noticeable that this increase is entirely in the public schools. 
Of those 59 scholars in 1890, 36 were in public high schools and 
23 in private. By 1900 there were 25 in private, but 70 in the 
public schools. Of the students in the public high schools 50 
per cent, studied Latin, 9 per cent. French, 15 per cent. German. 
The principal courses of study are English grammar, English 
literature, history, geography, mathematics, and physics. In the 
private schools 23 per cent, took French, 18 per cent. German, 
10 per cent. Greek. Only 11 per cent, of students in the public 
high schools go to college, but 32 per cent, of those in private 
schools. Out of the 1,978 private high schools in the year 1900, 
945 were for students of special religious sects; 361 were Romati 
Catholic, 98 were Episcopalian, 96 Baptist, 93 Presbyterian, 
65 Methodist, 55 Quaker, 32 Lutheran, etc. There were more 
than 1,000 private high schools not under the influence of any 
church. One real factor of their influence is found in the statis- 
tical fact that, in the public high schools, there are 26 scholars for 
every teacher, while in the private schools only 11. 

The following figures will suffice to give an idea of the great 
differences which exist between the different states: The number 
of scholars in high schools in the state of Massachusetts is 15 to 



THE SCHOOLS 381 

every 1,000 citizens; in the state of New York, 11; in Illinois, 9; 
in Texas, 7; in the Carolinas, 5; and in Oklahoma, 3. In the pri- 
vate high schools of the whole country the boys were slightly in 
the majority; 50.3 per cent, against 49.7 per cent, of girls. In 
order to give at least a glimpse of this abyss, we may say that in 
the public high school the boys were only 41.6 per cent., while the 
girls were 58.4 per cent. 

So much for the schools proper. We shall later consider the 
higher institutions — colleges, universities, and so forth — while 
the actual expanse of the school system in America, as we have 
said before, is broader still. In the first place, the kindergar- 
ten, a contribution which Germany has made, deserves notice. 
Very few creations of German thought have won such complete 
acceptance in the New World as Froebel's system of education; 
and seldom, indeed,' is the German origin of an institution so 
frankly and freely recognized. Froebel is everywhere praised, 
and the German word "Kindergarten" has been universally 
adopted in the English language. 

Miss Peabody, of Boston, took the part of pioneer, back in the 
fifties. Very soon the movement spread to St. Louis and to New 
York, so that in 1875 there were already about one hundred 
kindergartens with 3,000 children. To-day there must be about 
5,000 kindergartens distributed over the country, with about a 
quarter of a million children. During this development various 
tendencies have been noticeable. At first considerable stress was 
laid on giving some rational sort of occupation to the children of 
the rich who were not quite old enough for school. Later, however, 
philanthropic interest in the children of the very poorest part of 
the population became the leading motive — the children, that is, 
who, without such careful nurture, would be exposed to dangerous 
influences. Both of these needs could be satisfied by private 
initiative. Slowly, however, these two extremes came to meet; 
not only the richest and poorest, but also the children of the great 
middle classes from the fourth to the sixth year, were gradually 
brought under this sort of school training. As soon as the system 
was recognized to be a need of the entire community, it was natu- 
rally adopted into the popular system of instruction. To-day two 
hundred and fifty cities have kindergartens as a part of their school 
systems. 



382 THE AMERICANS 

Meanwhile there has sprung up still another tendency, which 
took its origin in Chicago. Chicago probably has the best insti- 
tution with a four years' course for the preparation of teachers 
for the kindergarten. In this school not only the professional 
teachers, but the mothers, are welcomed. And through the means 
of this institution in Chicago, the endeavour is slowly spreading to 
educate mothers everywhere how to bring up their children who 
are still in the nursery so as to be bodily, intellectually, and morally 
sound. The actual goal of this very reasonable movement may 
well be the disappearance of the official kindergarten. The child 
will then find appropriate direction and inspiration in the natural 
surroundings of its home, and the kindergarten will, as at first, 
limit itself chiefly to those rich families who wish to purchase their 
freedom from parental cares, and to such poor families as have to 
work so hard that they have no time left to look after their children. 
A slow reaction, moreover, is going on among the public school 
teachers. The child who comes out of the Froebel school into 
the primary school is said to be somewhat desultory in his activ- 
ities, and so perhaps this great popularity of the kindergarten will 
gradually decrease. Nevertheless, for the moment the kinder- 
garten must be recognized as a passing fashion of very great impor- 
tance, and, so far as it devotes itself philanthropically to children 
in the poor districts, its value can hardly be overestimated. 

Now, all this instruction of the child before he goes to school 
is much less significant and less widely disseminated than those 
thousandfold modes of instruction which are carried on for the 
development of men and women after they have passed their 
school days. Any one who knows this country will at once call 
to mind the innumerable courses of lectures, clubs of study, 
Chautauqua institutions, university extension courses, women's 
clubs, summer and correspondence schools, free scientific lec- 
tures, and many other such institutions which have developed 
here more plentifully than in any other country. After having 
dwelt on the kindergarten, one is somewhat tempted to think also 
of these as men and women gardens. There is really some resem- 
blance to a sort of intellectual garden, where no painful effort or 
hard work is laid out for the young men and women who wander 
there carelessly to pluck the flowers. But it is, perhaps, rather too 
easy for the trained person to be unjust to such informal means 



THE SCHOOLS 383 

of culture. It is really hard to view the latter in quite the right 
perspective. Whosoever has once freed himself from all pre- 
judices, and looked carefully into the psychic life of the intellec- 
tual middle classes, v^ill feel at once the incomparable value of 
these peculiar forms of intellectual stimulation, and their great 
significance for the self-perfection of the great masses. 

While the kindergarten was imported from Germany, the uni- 
versity extension movement came from England. This move- 
ment, which was very popular about a decade ago, is decidedly 
now on the wane. Those forms of popular education which are 
distinctly American have shown themselves to possess the most 
vigour. There is one name which, above all others, is characteristic 
of these native institutions. It is Chautauqua. This is the old 
Indian name for a lake which lies very pleasantly situated in the 
State of New York, about two hours by train from Buffalo. The 
name of the lake has gone over to the village on its banks, the name 
of the village has been carried over to that system of instruction 
which was first begun there, and now every institution is called 
Chautauquan which is modelled after that system. Even to-day 
the school at Chautauqua is the foutain-head of the whole move- 
ment. Every summer, and particularly through July and August, 
when the school-teachers have their vacation, some ten thousand 
men and women gather together to participate in a few weeks of 
recreation and intellectual stimulation. The life there is quiet and 
simple; concerts and lectures are given in the open air in an amphi- 
theatre which seats several thousand, and there are smaller classes 
of systematic instruction in all departments of learning. The 
teachers in special courses are mostly professors. The lecturers 
in the general gatherings are well-known politicians, officials, 
scholars, ministers, or otherwise distinguished personalities. For 
the sake of recreation, there are excursions, dramatic performances, 
and concerts. A few hours of systematic work every day serve 
as a stimulus for thought and culture, while the mutual influence 
of the men and women who are so brought together and the whole 
atmosphere of the place generate a real moral enthusiasm. 

The special courses which range from Greek, the study of the 
Bible, and mathematics to political economy, philosophy, and 
pedagogics, are supplemented on the one hand by examinations 
from which the participators get a certificate in black and white 



S84 THE AMERICANS 

which is highly prized among teachers; and on the other side, by 
suggestions for the further carrying on by private reading of the 
studies which they have elected. The enthusiastic banner-bearer 
of Chautauqua is still to-day one of its founders, Bishop Vincent. 
He has done more than any one else toward bringing harmony 
into the monotonous and intellectually hungry lives of hundreds 
of thousands throughout the country, and especially of public 
school teachers. And in this work the instruction, the religious 
strengthening, the instillation of personal contentment, patriotic 
enthusiasm, aesthetic joy in life, and moral inspiration, are not 
to be separated. 

When Theodore Roosevelt, who was then governor of New York, 
spoke in the Chautauqua amphitheatre to more than ten thousand 
persons, he turned enthusiastically to Bishop Vincent and said, 
*' I know of nothing in the whole country which is so filled with 
blessing for the nation." And when he had finished, the whole 
audience gave him the Chautauqua salute; ten thousand hand- 
kerchiefs were waved in the air — an extraordinary sight, which in 
Chautauqua signifies the greatest appreciation. This custom be- 
gan years ago, when a deaf scholar had given a lecture, and while 
the thundering applause was sounding which the speaker himself 
could not hear, Bishop Vincent brought out this visible token of 
gratification; and this form of applause not only became a tradi- 
tion there, but also spread to all other Chautauqua institutions 
throughout the country. To-day there are more than three hun- 
dred of these, many of them in beautifully situated summer re- 
sorts, and some equipped with splendid libraries, banquet halls, 
casinos, and clubs. Some of these concentrate their energies in 
particular lines of learning, and of course they are very different 
in scope and merit. And nevertheless the fundamental trait of 
idealism shows through all these popular academies. 

Among other varieties of popular instruction there are the at- 
tempts at university extension, which are very familiar. The chief 
aim is here to utilize the teaching forces and other means of instruc- 
tion of the higher educational institutions for the benefit of the 
great masses. Often the thing has been treated as if it were a 
matter of course, in a political democracy, that colleges and uni- 
versities ought not to confine themselves to the narrow circles of 
their actual students, but should go out and down to the artisans 



THE SCHOOLS 38s 

and labourers. But it was always asserted that this education 
should not consist merely in entertaining lectures, but should in- 
volve a form of teaching that presupposed a certain participa- 
tion and serious application on the part of the attendants. And 
the chief emphasis has been laid on having every subject treated 
in a series of from six to twelve meetings, on distributing to 
the hearers a concise outline of the lectures with references to 
literature, on allowing the audience after the lecture to ask as 
many questions as it desired, and on holding a written examination 
at the end of the course. Any one who has passed a certain num- 
ber of these examinations receives a certificate. In one year, 
for example, there were 43 places in which the University of Phila- 
delphia gave such courses of lectures. The University of Chicago 
has arranged as many as 141 courses of six lectures each, in 92 
different places. Other higher institutions have done likewise; 
and if indeed the leading universities of the East have entirely 
declined to take part, nevertheless the country, and particularly 
the West, is everywhere scattered with such lecture courses. 

These lectures can be divided into two groups; those which are 
instructive and educate their hearers, and those which are inspir- 
ing and awaken enthusiasm. The first are generally illustrated 
with stereopticon pictures, the last are illustrated with poetical quo- 
tations. Here, as everywhere in the world, the educational lectures 
are often merely tiresome, and the inspiring ones merely bombastic. 
But the reason for the rapid decline in this whole movement is prob- 
ably not the bad quality of the lectures, but the great inconven- 
ience which the lecturers feel in going so far from their accus- 
tomed haunts. It is not to be doubted that very much good has 
come after all from this form of instruction. The summer schools 
have a similar relation to the higher institutions, but a much more 
thorough-going character; and while the university extension 
movement is waning, the summer school instruction is on the 
in«Bease. First of all, even the leading universities take part in 
it, although it is mostly the second violins who render the music; 
that is to say, younger instructors rather than the venerable pro- 
fessors are the ones who teach. High school teachers and min- 
isters often return in this way to their alma mater, and the neces- 
sity of devoting one's self for six weeks to a single subject gives to 
the whole enterprise a very much more scholarly character. That 



386 THE AMERICANS 

interesting summer school which was held a few years ago in 
Cambridge is still remembered, when Harvard invited at its own 
expense 1,400 of the most earnest Cuban school teachers, and 
instilled in them through six long weeks something of American 
culture. 

Again, and this quite independent of the higher institutions 
and of any formal courses, there are the institutions for free lec- 
tures. Indeed, there are so many that one might almost call them 
lecture factories. The receptive attitude of the American public 
of all classes toward lectures surpasses the comprehension of the 
European. In many circles, indeed, this is positively a passion; 
and the extraordinary plentifulness of opportunity, of course, dis- 
ciplines and strengthens the demand, which took its origin in the 
same strong spirit of self-perfection. 

A favourable fact is undoubtedly the high perfection to which 
the lecture has been cultivated in America. As compared with 
European countries, a larger proportion of lectures may fairly 
be called works of art as regards both their content and their form. 
The American is first of all an artist in any sort of enthusiastic 
and persuasive exposition. For this very reason his lectures are so 
much more effective than whatever he prints, and for this reason, 
too, the public flocks to hear him. This state of things has also 
been favoured by the general custom of going to political meetings 
and listening to political speeches. In Boston and its suburbs, 
for example, although it is not larger than Hamburg, no less than 
five public lectures per day on the average are delivered between 
September and June. In contrast to German views, it is con- 
sidered entirely appropriate for lecturers on all public occasions 
to receive financial compensation; just as any German scholar 
would accept from a publisher some emolument for his literary 
productions. This is, of course, not true of lectures at congresses, 
clubs, or popular gatherings. In a state like Massachusetts, every 
little town has its woman's club, with regular evenings for lectures 
by outside speakers; and the condition of the treasury practically 
decides whether one or two hundred dollars shall be paid for some 
drawing speaker who will give a distinguished look to the pro- 
gramme; or whether the club will be satisfied with some teacher 
from the next town who will deliver his last year's lecture on 
Pericles, or the tubercle bacillus, for twenty dollars. And so it is 



THE SCHOOLS 387 

through the entire country; the quantity decreases as one goes 
South, and the quality as one goes West. 

All this is no new phenomenon in American life. In the year 
1639 lectures on religious subjects were so much a matter of course 
in New England, and Bostonians were so confirmed in the habit 
of going to lectures, that a law was passed concerning the giving 
of such lectures. It said that the poor people were tempted by 
the lecturer to neglect their affairs and to harm their health, as 
the lectures lasted well into the night. Scientific lectures, how- 
ever, came into popular appreciation not earlier than the nine- 
teenth century. In the first decade of that century, the famous 
chemist, Silliman, of Yale University, attained a great success in 
popular scientific lectures. After the thirties "lyceums" flour- 
ished throughout the land, which were educational societies formed 
for the purpose of establishing public lecture courses. 

To be sure, these were generally disconnected lectures, in which 
political and social topics predominated. Those were the classic 
days of oratory, when men like Webster, Channing, Everett, 
Emerson, Parker, Mann, Sumner, Phillips, Beecher, Curtis, and 
others enthused the nation with their splendid rhetoric, and pre- 
sented to the masses with pathos that we no longer know those 
great arguments which led to the Civil War. The activities of 
later decades emphasized the intellectual side. Splendid insti- 
tutions have now been organized for popular lectures and lecture 
courses in all the leading cities. Thus the Peabody Institute in 
Baltimore, the Pratt Institute in New York, the Armour Institute 
in Chicago, and the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia have come 
into existence. The catalogue of the lectures and courses which, 
for instance, the Pratt Institute announces every winter fills a 
whole volume; and nevertheless, every one who pays his annual 
fee of five dollars is entitled to take part in all of them. Every 
day from morning to night he may listen to lectures by men who 
are more or less well known throughout the country, and who 
come specially to New York in order to give their short courses 
of some six lectures. 

The highest undertaking of this sort is the Lowell Institute in 
Boston. In 1838, after a tour through Egypt, John A. Lowell 
added a codicil to his will, whereby he gave half of his large 
income for the free, popular, scientific instruction of his native 



^88 THE AMERICANS 

town. The plan that has been followed for sixty years is of invit- 
ing every winter eight or ten of the most distinguished thinkers 
and investigators in America and England to give cycles of six or 
twelve connected lectures. The plentiful means of this founda- 
tion have made it possible to bring in the really most important 
men; and on the other hand, for just this reason an invitation to 
deliver the Lowell Lectures has come to be esteemed a high honour 
in the English-speaking world. Men like Lyell and Tyndall 
and many others have come across the ocean; even Agassiz, the 
well-known geologist, came to the New World first as a Lowell 
lecturer, and then later settled at Harvard University. Up to 
this time some five thousand lectures have been held before large 
audiences by this institute. The great advantage which this has 
been to the population of Boston can in no wise be estimated, nor 
can it ever be known how much this influence has done for the 
spirit of self-perfection in New England. 

In a certain sense, however, we have already overstepped the 
field of popular education. The high standard of the Lowell 
Institute and the position of its speakers have brought it about 
that almost every course has been an original exposition of new 
scientific lines of thought. While the other popular courses have 
got their material second-hand, or have been at least for the 
speaker a repetition of his habitual discourses to students, in the 
Lowell Institute the results of new investigations have been the 
main thing. And so we have come already to the domain of pro- 
ductive science, of which we shall have later to treat. 

One who looks somewhat more deeply will realize that, outside 
the Lowell Institute, there is no thought in by far the larger part of 
these lectures and readings, of original scientific endeavour. And 
the question inevitably comes up, whether the intellectual life of 
the country does not lose too much of its strength because the 
members of the community who should be especially devoted to 
intellectual production are enticed in so many different ways 
into the paths of mere reproduction. To be sure, it is never a 
professional duty with these men, but the temptation is so great 
as to overcome the latent resistance of even the best of them. 
There are a few, it is true, who see their highest goal in these popu- 
lar and artistic expositions of their department of science; and a 
few who feel that their highest call, their most serious life-work, 



THE SCHOOLS 389 

is to bear science philanthropically out to the masses. But it is 
different with most of them. Many like the rewards; it is such 
an easy way for the ready speaker, perhaps, of doubling his salary 
from the university: and especially the younger men whose in- 
come is small, find it hard to resist the temptation, although just 
they are the ones who ought to give all their free energy to becom- 
ing proficient in special lines of investigation. Yet even this is 
not the chief motive. In countless cases where any financial 
return to the speaker is out of the question, the love of rhetoric 
exerts a similar temptation. The chief motive, doubtless, is that 
the American popular opinion is so extraordinarily influenced by 
the spoken word, and at the same time popular eloquence is spread 
abroad so widely by the press, that not only a mere passing reputa- 
tion, but also a strong and lasting influence on the thought of the 
people, can most readily be gotten in this way. 

And so everything works together to bring a large amount of 
intellectual energy into the service of the people. The individual 
is hardly able to resist the temptation; and certainly very many 
thus harm seriously their best energies. Their popularization 
of knowledge diminishes their own scholarship. They grow 
adapted to half-educated audiences; their pleasure and capacity 
for the highest sort of scientific work are weakened by the seduc- 
tive applause which follows on every pretty turn of thought, and 
by the deep effect of superficial arguments which avoid and 
conceal all the real difficulties. This is most especially true of 
that merely mechanical repetition which is encouraged by the 
possession of a lecture manuscript. If it is true that Wendell 
Phillips repeated his speech on the Lost Arts two thousand times, 
it was doubtless a unique case, and is hardly possible to-day. 
Nevertheless, to-day we find most regrettably frequent repetitions; 
and a few competent intellects have entirely abandoned their 
activities on regular academic lines to travel through the country 
on lecture tours. For instance, a brilliant historian like John 
Fiske, would undoubtedly have accomplished much more of per- 
manent importance if he had not written every one of his books, 
in the first instance, as a set of lectures which he delivered before 
some dozen mixed audiences. 

On the other hand, we must not suppose that these lectures 
before educational institutions are all hastily and mechanically 



jpo THE AMERICANS 

produced. If the lectures were so trivial their preparation would 
demand little energy, and their delivery would much less satisfy 
the ambition of those who write them; and so, on both accounts, 
they would be much less dangerous for the highest productiveness 
of their authors. The level is really extremely high. Even the 
audience of the smallest town is rather pampered; it demands the 
most finished personal address and a certain tinge of individuality 
in the exposition. And so even this form of production redounds 
somewhat to the intellectual life of the nation. The often repeated 
attempt to depict some phase of reality, uniquely and completely 
in a one-hour lecture, or to elucidate a problem in such a short time, 
leads necessarily to a mastery in the art of the essay. Success in this 
line is made easier by the marked feeling for form which the 
American possesses. In a surprisingly large number of American 
books, the chapters read like well-rounded and complete addresses. 
The book is really a succession of essays, and if one looks more 
carefully, one will often discover that each one was obviously 
first thought out as a lecture. Thus the entire system of popular 
education by means of lectures has worked, beyond doubt, harm- 
fully on creative production, but favourably on the development 
of artistic form in scientific exposition, on the art of essay, and on 
the popular dissemination of natural and social sciences and of 
history and economics most of all. 

If one wished to push the inquiry further, and to ask whether 
these advantages outweigh the disadvantages, the American 
would decline to discuss the problem within these limits; since 
the prime factor, which is the effect on the masses who are seeking 
cultivation, would be left out of account. The work of the scholar 
is not to be estimated solely with reference to science or to its 
practical effects, but always with reference to the people's need 
for self-perfection. And even if pure science in its higher soarings 
were to suffer thereby, the American would say that in science, 
as everywhere else, it is not a question of brilliant achievements, 
but of moral values. For the totality of the nation, he would say, 
it is morally better to bring serious intellectual awakenings into 
every quiet corner of the land, than to inscribe a few great achieve- 
ments on the tablets of fame. Such is the sacrifice which democ- 
racy demands. And yet to-day the pendulum begins very 
slowly to swing back. A certain division of labour is creeping in 



THE SCHOOLS jgi 

whereby productive and reproductive activities are more clearly 
distinguished, and the best intellectual energies are reserved for 
the highest sort of v^ork, and saved from being w^asted on merely 
trivial tasks. 

But even the effect on the masses has not been wholly favour- 
able. We have seen how superficiality has been greatly en- 
couraged. It is, indeed, an artificial feeding-ground for that 
immodesty which we see to spring up so readily in a political 
democracy, and which gives out its opinion on all questions 
without being really informed. To be sure, there is no lack of 
admiration for what is great; on the contrary, such admiration 
becomes often hysterical. But since it is not based on any suffi- 
cient knowledge, it remains after all undiscriminating; the man 
who admires without understanding, forms a judgment where 
he should decline to take any attitude at all. It may be, indeed, 
that the village population under the influence of the last lecture 
course is talking about Cromwell and Elizabeth instead of about 
the last village scandal; but if the way in which it talks has not 
been modified, one cannot say that a change of topic signifies any 
elevation of standard. And if, indeed, the village is still to 
gossip, it will seem to many more modest and more amiable if it 
gossips about some indifferent neighbour, and not about Cromwell. 

On the other hand, we must not fail to recognize that, especially 
in the large institutions, as the Chautauquas, and in the university 
extension courses and the summer schools, everything possible is 
done to escape this constant danger. In the first place, the single 
lectures are very much discouraged, and a course of six to twenty 
lectures rather is given on a single topic; then the written exami- 
nations, with their certificates, and finally, the constant guidance 
in private reading have their due effect. Indeed, the smallest 
women's club is particular to put before its members the very 
best books which relate to the subjects of their lectures; and 
smaller groups are generally formed to study carefully through 
together some rather large treatise. 

The total amount of actual instruction and intellectual inspira- 
tion coming to the people outside of the schools, is, in these 
ways, immeasurable. And the disadvantages of superficiality are 
somewhat outweighed by a great increase and enrichment of 
personality. Of course, one could ask whether this traditional 



7,g2 THE AMERICANS 

way is really the shortest to its goal. Some may think that the 
same expenditure of time and energy would give a better result 
if it were made on a book rather than on a course of lectures. 
Yet the one does not exclude the other. Hearing the lecture 
incites to the reading of the book; and nowhere is more reading 
done than in the United States. There is one other different 
and quite important factor in the situation. The man who reads 
is isolated, and any personal influence is suppressed. At a 
lecture, on the other hand, the peculiarly personal element is 
brought to the front, both in the speaker and in the hearer — the 
spoken word touches so much more immediately and vitally than 
the printed word, and gives to thought an individual colouring. 
Most of all, the listener is much more personally appealed to than 
the reader; his very presence in the hall is a public announcement 
of his participation. He feels himself called, with the other 
hearers, to a common task. And in this way a moral motive is 
added to the intellectual. They both work together to fill the 
life of every man with the desire for culture. Perchance the 
impersonal book may better satisfy the personal desire for self- 
perfection, and yet the lecture will be more apt to keep it alive 
and strengthen it as a force in character and in life. 

It is indifferent whether this system of popular education, 
these lectures before the public, has really brought with it 
the greatest possible culture and enlightenment. It is at least 
clear that they have spread everywhere the most profound desire 
for culture and enlightenment, and for this reason they have 
been the necessary system for a people so informed with the 
spirit of individual self-perfection. 



CHAPTER SIXTEEN 

The Universities 

WHEN American industry began, a short time ago, to dis- 
turb European circles, people very much exaggerated the 
danger, because the event was so entirely unexpected. The 
" American peril" was at the door before any one knew about it, 
or even supposed that America really possessed an industry which 
amounted to anything. It will not be long before Europe will 
experience a like surprise in the intellectual sphere. A great 
work will certainly appear, as if accomplished in a moment, 
before any one supposes that America so much as dreams of 
science and investigation. At the time, people tardily said to them- 
selves that such industry could only have been built on firm 
rock, and never would have been able to spring up if American 
economic life had really been founded, as was then supposed, on 
avarice and corruption. And similarly, in the intellectual sphere, 
people will have to trace things back, and say in retrospect that 
such achievements could not be brought forth suddenly, and that 
serious and competent scientific work throughout the country 
must really have gone before. It is not here, in this world of 
intellectual labour, as in the economic world; there is no question 
of threatening rivalry, there is no scientific competition; there is 
nothing but co-operation. And yet even here no people can, 
without danger to its own achievements, afford to ignore what 
another nation has done. The sooner that Europe, and in par- 
ticular Germany, acquaints itself with the intellectual life of 
America, so much more organically and profitably the future 
labour in common will develop. For any one who knows the real 
situation can already realize, without the gift of prophecy, that 
in science more than in other spheres the future will belong to 
these two countries. 



394 "^HE AMERICANS 

On the part of Germany to-day there prevails an almost dis- 
couraging ignorance of everything which pertains to American 
universities; and we may say, at once, that if we speak of science 
we shall refer to nothing but the universities. As in Germany, 
so it is in the United States, in sharp and notable contrast to 
France and England, that the academic teacher is the real priest 
of science. In England and France, it is not customary for the 
great investigator to be at the same time the daily teacher of 
youth. In America and Germany he is exactly this. America 
has, to be sure, historians and national economists like Rhodes, 
Lodge, Roosevelt, Schouler, and others who are outside of aca- 
demic circles; and very many lawyers, doctors and preachers, who 
are scientifically productive; and her most conspicuous physicists, 
so far as reputation goes, like Edison, Bell, Tesla, and so many 
others, are advancing science indirectly through their discoveries 
and inventions. Strictly speaking, the officials of the scientific 
institutions at Washington are likewise outside of the universities, 
and the greatest intellectual efficiency has always been found 
among these men. Nevertheless, it remains true that on the 
whole, the scientific life of the nation goes on in the universities, 
and that the academic instruction conveyed there is the most 
powerful source of strength to the entire Am.erican people. 

The German still has no confidence in American science, is 
fond of dwelling on the amusing newspaper reports of Western 
"universities" which are often equivalent to a German Sekunda, 
or on those extraordinary conditions which prevailed "a short 
time ago" in the study of medicine. This "short time ago" 
means, however, in the intellectual life of Germany an entirely 
different length of time from that which it means in the New 
World. One is almost tempted to compare the intellectual 
development of Germany and America by epochs in order to get 
a proper means of comparing intervals of time in these respective 
countries. The primitive times of the Germans, from the days 
of Tacitus down to their conversion to Christianity under Charle- 
magne in about the year 800, would correspond, then, to the one 
hundred and fifty years from the discovery of America up to the 
beginning of the Puritan era in 1630. The next period would 
embrace in Germany seven hundred years more — up to the time 
when Germany freed itself from Rome. In America this would be 



THE UNIVERSITIES ' S95 

again a century and a half, up to 1776, when the nation freed itself 
from England. Then follow after the Reformation during a period 
of three hundred years, the Thirty Years' War, the Renaissance of 
the eighteenth century, the downfall of the Napoleonic influence, 
and, finally, the war for freedom. And once again the correspond- 
ing intervals on this side of the ocean have been of very much 
shorter duration; firstly years of war, then the aesthetic rise in the 
middle of the century, then the sufi^erings of the Civil War, the 
period of reconstruction, and, finally, peace. After 18 13 a new 
period commences, which ends in 1870 with the German amalga- 
mation into a nation. Historically incomparable with Germany's 
great war against the French, America had in 1898 an insignificant 
war with Spain; but for the national consciousness of the Ameri- 
cans it played, perhaps, no less important a role. In fact, there 
began at that time probably a certain culmination in American 
intellectual development which in its six years is comparable in 
efi^ect with what the Germans went through during several dec- 
ades after the Franco-Prussian War. Indeed, all that happened 
in America a hundred years ago is felt to lie as far back as the 
events which took place in Germany three hundred years ago; 
and, in matters of higher education and scientific research, condi- 
tions have probably changed more in the last ten years than they 
have changed during fifty years in Germany. 

The many false ideas, however, depend for credence, so far as 
they have any foundation, not alone on the reports of the previ- 
ous condition of things, but also on misleading accounts of the 
conditions to-day. For even the best-intentioned narrator is very 
apt to be misled, because he finds it so hard to free himself from 
ordinary German conceptions. The position of the German 
schools of higher education is so easily grasped, while that in 
America is so complicated, that the German is always tempted 
to bring clearness and order into what he sees as confusion, by 
forcing it into the simple scheme to which he is accustomed, and 
thus to misunderstand it. 

The German traveller is certain to start from the distinction so 
familiar to him between the Gymnasium and the university with 
four faculties, and he always contents himself with making but 
one inquiry: "Is this institution a university with four faculties ?" 
And when he is told that it is not, lie is convinced to his entire 



Sg6 THE AMERICANS 

satisfaction that it is therefore only a Gymnasium. Indeed, very 
many of the educated Germans who have lived in America for 
some decades w^ould still know no better; and, nevertheless, the 
conditions are really not complicated until one tries to make 
them fit into this abstract German scheme. The principle of 
gradations which is manifest in all American institutions is in 
itself fully as simple as the German principle of sharp demarca- 
tions. Most foreigners do not even go so far as to ask whether 
a given institution is a university. They are quite content to 
find out whether the word university is a part of its name. If 
they then ascertain from the catalogue that the studies are about 
the same as those which are drilled into the pupils of a Sekunda, 
they can attest the shameful fact: "There are no universities in 
America to be in any wise compared with the German uni- 
versities." 

In the first place, it should be said that the word "university" 
is not used in America in the same sense as in Germany, but 
is almost completely interchangeable with the word "college," 
as a rather colorless addition to the proper name of any institu- 
tion whatsoever, so long only as its curriculum goes beyond 
that of the high school, and so long also as it is not exclusively 
designed to train ministers of the gospel, doctors, or lawyers. A 
higher school for medical instruction is called a "medical school," 
and there are similarly "law schools" and "divinity schools," 
whereas, in the college or university, as the term is generally used, 
these three subjects are not taught. College is the older word, 
and since the institutions in the East are in general the older 
ones, the name college has been and still is in that region the 
more common. But in the West, where in general the institutions 
are on a considerably lower level, the newer name of university 
is the more usual. No confusion necessarily arises from this, 
since the institutions which are styled now college and now uni- 
versity represent countless gradations, and the general term is 
without special significance. No one would think of saying that 
when he was young he went to a university, any more than he 
would say that on a journey he visited a city. In order to make 
the statement entirely clear, he would add the explicit name of 
the institution. Every specialist knows that a man who has 
spent four years in Taylor University in Indiana or at Blackburn 



THE UNIVERSITIES $97 

University in Illinois, or at Leland University in Louisiana, or 
at other similar "universities," will not be nearly so well educated 
as a man who has been to Yale College or Princeton College or 
Columbia College. The proper name is the only significant 
designation, and the addition of "college" or "university" tells 
nothing. 

Out of this circumstance there has independently developed, in 
recent years in pedagogical circles, a second sense for the word 
"university." By "university" there is coming to be under- 
stood an institution which is not only a college or a university 
in the old sense, but which furthermore has various professional 
schools. Even in this sense of the word, it is not exactly the same 
as the German conception, since such an institution includes the 
college, whereas there is nothing in Germany which would cor- 
respond to this collegiate department. Moreover, here belongs 
also a part of what the Germans have only in the technological 
institute. Finally, there is one more usage which arises in a 
way from a confusion of the two that we have mentioned. 
Some persons are inclined to mean by "university" a first-class 
college, and by "college" an institution of an inferior standard; 
and so, finally, the proper name of the institution is the only thing 
to go by, and the entire higher system of education in the country 
can be understood only in this way. 

Therefore, we shall abstract from the designations of these 
institutions, and consider only what they really are. We have 
before us the fact that hundreds of higher institutions of learn- 
ing exist without any sharp demarcation between them; that 
is, they form a closely graded scale, commencing with secondary 
schools and leading up to universities, of which some are in 
many respects comparable with the best institutions of Germany. 
In the second place, the groupings of the studies in these insti- 
tutions are entirely different from those which prevail in Ger- 
many, especially owing to the fact that emphasis is laid on the 
college, which Germany does not have. It could not be different; 
and this condition is, in fact, the patent of American success. If 
we try to understand the conditions of to-day from those of yester- 
day, the real unity of this system comes out sharply. What was, 
then, we have to ask, the national need for higher instruction at 
the time when these states organized themselves into one nation .? 



3^8 THE AMERICANS 

In the first place, the people had to have preachers, while it 
was clear, nevertheless, that the state, and therefore the entire 
political community, was independent of any church, and must 
never show any favour to one sect over another. And so it became 
the duty of each separate sect to prepare its own preachers for their 
religious careers as well or as badly as it was able. The people, 
again, had to have lawyers and judges. Now the judges, in 
accordance with the democratic spirit, were elected from the 
people, and every man had the right to plead his own case in 
court : — so that if any man proposed to educate and prepare him- 
self to plead other men's cases for them, it was his own business 
to give himself the proper education and not the business of the 
community. He had to become an apprentice under experienced 
attorneys, and the community had not to concern itself in the 
matter, nor even to see to it that such technical preparation was 
grounded on real learning. School-teachers were necessary, but 
in order to satisfy the demands of the times it was hardly neces- 
sary for the teacher to go in his own studies very much beyond 
the members of his classes. A few more years of training than 
could be had in the public schools was desirable, but there was 
no thought of scholarship or science. On the lowest level of all, 
a hundred years ago, stood the science of medicine. It was a 
purely practical occupation, of which anybody might learn the 
technique without any special training. He might be an appren- 
tice with some older physician, or he might pick it up in a number 
of other ways. 

As soon as we have understood the early conditions in this way, 
we can see at once how they would have further to develop. It 
is obvious that in their own interests the sects would have to 
found schools for preachers. The administrators of justice 
would of course consult together and found schools of law, in 
which every man who paid his tuition might be prepared for the 
legal career. Doctors would have to come together and found 
medical schools which, once more, every one with a public school 
training would be free to attend. Finally, the larger communi- 
ties would feel the necessity of having schools for training their 
teachers. In all this the principle of social selection would have 
to enter in at once. Since there were no formal provisions which 
might prescribe and fix standards of excellence, so everything 



THE UNIVERSITIES S99 

would be regulated by the laws of supply and demand. The 
schools which could furnish successful lawyers, doctors, teachers, 
and clergymen would become prosperous, while the others would 
lead a modest existence or perhaps disappear. It would not be, 
however, merely a question of the good or bad schools, but of 
schools having entirely different standards, and these adapted 
to purely local conditions. The older states would, of course, 
demand better things than the new pioneer states; thickly settled 
localities would fix higher requirements than rural districts; rich 
districts higher than poor. In this way some schools would have 
a longer course of study than others, and some schools demand 
more previous training as a condition of entrance than others. 
So it would soon come to mean nothing to say simply that one 
had taken the legal, or medical, or theological course, as the one 
school might offer a four years' course and the other a course of 
two years, and the one, moreover, might demand college training 
as preparation, and the other merely a grammar-school educa- 
tion. Every school has its own name, and this name is the 
only thing which characterizes its standard of excellence. In this 
way there is no harm at all if there are three or four medical 
schools in one city, and if their several diplomas of graduation 
are of entirely different value. 

What is the result of this ^. It is a threefold one. In the first 
place, popular initiative is stimulated to the utmost, and every 
person and every institution is encouraged to do its best. There 
are no formal regulations to hamper enterprising impulses, to 
keep back certain more advanced regions, or to approve medioc- 
rity with an artificial seal of authority. In the second place, 
technical education is able to adapt itself thoroughly to all the 
untold local factors, and to give to every region such schools of 
higher training as it needs, without pulling down any more 
advanced sections of the country to an artificially mediocre level 
more adapted to the whole country. In the third place, the free 
competition between the different institutions insures their 
ceaseless progress. There are no hard and fixed boundary lines, 
and whatsoever does not advance surely recedes; that which 
leads to-day is surpassed to-morrow if it does not adapt itself to 
the latest requirements. This is true both as regards the quality 
of the teachers and their means of instruction, as regards the 



4.00 THE AMERICANS 

length of the course, and more especially the conditions of entrance. 
These last have steadily grown throughout the country. Fifty 
years ago the very best institutions in the most advanced portions 
of the country demanded no more for entrance than the pro- 
fessional schools of third class situated in more rural regions 
demand to-day. And this tendency goes steadily onward day by 
day. If there were any great departures made, the institutions 
would be disintegrated; the schools which prepare pupils would 
not be able suddenly to come up to new requirements, and 
therefore few scholars would be able to prepare for greatly modi- 
lied entrance examinations. In this way, between the conserva- 
tive holding to historic traditions and the striving to progress and 
to exceed other institutions by the highest possible efficiency, a 
compromise is brought about which results in a gradual but not 
over-hasty improvement. 

We have so far entirely left out of account the state. We can 
speak here only of the individual state. The country as a whole 
has as little to do with higher education as with lower. But the 
single state has, in fact, a significant task — indeed, a double one. 
Since it aims at no monopoly, but rather gives the freest play to 
individual initiative, we have recognized the fundamental prin- 
ciple that restrictions are placed nowhere. On the other hand, it 
becomes the duty of the state to lend a helping hand wherever 
private activities have been found insufficient. This can happen 
in two ways: either the state may help to support private in- 
stitutions which already exist, or it may establish new ones of its 
own, which in that case offer free tuition to the sons and daugh- 
ters of all taxpayers. These so-called state universities are, in a 
way, the crowning feature of the free public school system. 
Wherever they exist, the sons of farmers have the advantage of 
free instruction from the kindergarten to the degree of doctor of 
philosophy. 

Now private initiative is weakest where the population is poor 
or stands on a low level of culture, so that few can be found to 
contribute sufficient funds to support good institutions, and at 
the same time the rich citizens of these less advanced states prefer 
to send their children to the universities of the most advanced 
states. The result is, and this is what is hardest for the foreigner 
to understand, that the higher institutions of learning which are 



THE UNIVERSITIES 4.01 

subsidized by the state stand for a grade of culture inferior to that 
of the private institutions, and that not only the leading universi- 
ties, like Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Chicago, Cor- 
nell, and Stanford, carry on their v^ork without the help of the state, 
but also that the leading Eastern States pay out much less for 
higher instruction than do the Western. The State of Massa- 
chusetts, v^hich stands at the head in matters of education, does 
not give a cent to its universities, while Ohio entirely supports 
the Ohio State University and gives aid to six other institutions. 

The second task of the states in educational matters is shared 
alike by all of them ; the state supervises all instruction, and, more 
than that, the state legislature confers on the individual institution 
the right to award grades, diplomas, and degrees to its students. 
No institution may change its organization without a civil permit. 
As culture has advanced the state has found it necessary to make 
the requirements in the various professional schools rather high. 
In practice, once more, a continual compromise has been necessary 
between the need to advance and the desire to stay, by traditions 
which have been proved and tried and found practical. Here, 
once again, any universal scheme of organization would have 
destroyed everything. If a high standard had been fixed it 
would have hindered private initiative, and given a set-back to 
Southern and Western states and robbed them of the impulses to 
development. A lower universal standard, on the other hand, 
would have impeded the advance of the more progressive portions 
of the country. Therefore the various state governments have 
taken a happy middle position in these matters, and their re- 
sponsibility for the separate institutions has been made even less 
complete in that the degrees of these institutions carry in them- 
selves no actual rights. Every state has its own laws for the 
admission of a lawyer to its bar, or to the public practice of 
medicine, and it is only to a small degree that the diplomas of 
professional schools are recognized as equivalent to a state 
examination. 

The history of the professional schools for lawyers, ministers, 
teachers, and physicians in America is by no means the history of 
the universities. We have so far left out of account the college, 
which is the nucleus of American education. Let us now go 
back to it. We saw in the beginning of the development of these 



402 THE AMERICANS 

states a social community in which preparation for the profes- 
sions of teaching, preaching, law or medicine implied a technical 
and specialized training, which every one could obtain for him- 
self without any considerable preparation. There was no thought 
of a broad, liberal education. Now, to be sure, the level of 
scholarship required for entrance into the professional schools 
has steadily risen, the duration and character of the instruction 
has been steadily improved; but even to-day the impression has 
not faded from the public consciousness, and is indeed favoured 
by the great differences in merit between the special schools, 
that such a practical introduction to the treatment of disease, 
to court procedure, the mastery of technical problems, or to the 
art of teaching, does not in itself develop educated men. All 
this is specialized professional training, which no more broadens 
the mind than would the professional preparation for the calling 
of the merchant or manufacturer or captain. Whether a man 
who is prepared for his special career is also an educated man, 
depends on the sort of general culture that he has become 
familiar with. It is thought important for a man to have had a 
liberal education before entering the commercial house or the 
medical school, but it is felt to be indifferent whether he has learned 
his profession at the stock exchange or at the clinic. 

The European will find it hard to follow this trend of thought. 
In Europe the highest institutions of learning are so closely 
allied to the learned professions, and these themselves have his- 
torically developed so completely from the learned studies, that 
professional erudition and general culture are well-nigh identical. 
And the general system of distinctions and merits favours in every 
way the learned professions. How much of this, however, 
springs out of special conditions may be seen, for instance, from 
the fact that in Germany an equal social position is given to the 
officer of the army and to the scholar. Even the American is, in 
his way, not quite consistent, in so far as he has at all times 
honoured the profession of the ministry with a degree of esteem 
that is independent of the previous preparation which the 
minister had before entering his theological school. This fact 
has come from the leading position which the clergymen held in 
the American colonial days, and the close relation which exists 
between the study of theology and general philosophy. 



THE UNIVERSITIES 403 

The fact that by chance one had taken the profession of law, 
or teaching, or medicine, did not exalt one in the eyes of one's 
contemporaries above the great mass of average citizens who 
went about their honest business. The separation, of those who 
were called to social leadership was seen to require, therefore, 
some principle which should be different from any professional 
training. At this point we come on yet another historical factor. 
The nation grew step for step with its commercial activities and 
undertakings. So long as it was a question of gaining and devel- 
oping new territory, the highest talent, the best strength and 
proudest personalities entered the service of this nationally 
significant work. It was a matter of course that no secondary 
position in society should be ascribed to these captains of com- 
merce and of industry. The highest degree of culture which 
they were able to attain necessarily fixed the standard of culture 
for the whole community; and, therefore, the traditional concept 
of the gentleman as the man of liberal culture and refinement 
came to have that great social significance which was reserved in 
Germany for the learned professions. 

In its outer form, the education of such a gentleman was bor- 
rowed from England. It was a four years' course coming after 
the high school, and laying special stress on the classical lan- 
guages, philosophy, and mathematics — a course which, up to the 
early twenties, kept a young man in contact with the fine arts and 
the sciences, with no thought for the practical earning of a live- 
lihood; which, therefore, kept him four years longer from the 
tumult of the world, and in an ideal community of men who were 
doing as he was doing; which developed him in work, in sport, 
in morals and social address. Such was the tradition; the insti- 
tution was called a college after the English precedent. Any man 
who went to college belonged to the educated class, and it was 
indiflferent what profession he took up; no studies of the 
professional school were able to replace a college education. 
Now, it necessarily happened that the endeavour to have students 
enter the professional schools with as thorough preparation as 
possible led eventually to demand of every one who undertook a 
professional course the complete college education. In fact, this 
last state of development is already reached in the best institu- 
tions of America. For instance, in Harvard and in Johns Hop- 



404 THE AMERICANS 

kins, the diploma of a four years' college course is demanded for 
entrance into the legal, medical, or theological faculty. But in 
popular opinion the dividing line between common and superior 
education is still the line between school and college, and not, as in 
Germany, between liberal and technical institutions of learning. 
One who has successfully passed through college becomes a 
graduate, a gentleman of distinction; he has the degree of bachelor 
of arts, and those who have this degree are understood to have 
had a higher education. 

This whole complex of relations is reflected within the col- 
lege itself. It is supposed to be a four years' course which 
comes after the high school, and we have seen that the high 
school itself has no fixed standard of instruction. The small 
prairie college may be no better than the Tertia or Sekunda of a 
German Realschule, while the large and influential colleges are 
certainly not at all to be compared simply with German schools, 
but rather with the German Prima of a Gymnasium, together 
with the first two or three semesters in the philosophical faculty 
of a university. Between these extremes there is a long, sliding 
scale, represented by over six hundred colleges. We must now 
bear in mind that the college was meant to be the higher school 
for the general cultivation of gentlemen. Of course, from the 
outset this idealistic demand was not free from utilitarian con- 
siderations; the same instruction could well be utilized as the 
most appropriate practical training of the school-teacher, and if 
so, the college becomes secondarily a sort of technical school for 
pedagogues. But, then, in the same way as the entrance into legal 
and medical faculties was gradually made more difficult, until 
now the best of these schools demand collegiate preparation, so 
also did the training school for teachers necessarily become of 
more and more professional character, until it gradually quite out- 
grew the college. The culmination is a philosophical faculty 
which, from its side, presupposes the college, and which, therefore, 
takes the student about where a German student enters his fourth 
semester — a technical school for specialized critical science laying 
main stress on seminaries, laboratories, and lectures for advanced 
students. Such a continuation of the college study beyond the 
time of college — that is, for those who have been graduated from 
college — is called a graduate school, and its goal is the degree of 



THE UNIVERSITIES 4.05 

doctor of philosophy. The graduate school is in this way par- 
allel with the law, medical, or divinity school, which likewise 
presuppose that their students have been graduated from 
college. 

The utilitarian element inevitably affects the college from 
another side. A college of the higher type will not be a school 
with a rigid curriculum, but will adapt itself more or less to the 
individuality of its students. If it is really to give the most it 
can, it must, at least during the last years of the college course, be 
somewhat like a philosophical faculty, and allow some selection 
among the various studies: — so that every man can best perfect his 
peculiar talent and can satisfy his inclinations for one or other 
sort of learning. So soon, now, as such academic freedom has been 
instituted, it is very liable to be used for utilitarian purposes. 
The future doctor and the future lawyer in their election of col- 
lege studies will have the professional school already in mind, 
and will be preparing themselves for their professional studies. 
The lawyer will probably study more history, the doctor will 
study biology, the theologian languages, the future manufac- 
turer may study physics, the banker political economy, and 
the politician will take up government. And so the ideal training 
school for gentlemen will not be merely a place for liberal educa- 
tion, but at the same time will provide its own sort of untechnical 
professional training. 

Inasmuch as everything really technical is still excluded, and 
the majority of college students even to-day come for nothing 
more than a liberal education, it remains true that the college is 
first of all a place for the development and refinement of per- 
sonal character; a place in which the young American spends 
the richest and happiest years of his life, where he forms his friend- 
ships and intellectual preferences which are to last throughout 
his life, and where the narrow confines of school life are outgrown 
and the confines of professional education not yet begun; where, 
in short, everything is broad and free and sunny. For the 
American the attraction of academic life is wholly centred in 
the college; the college student is the only one who lives the true 
student life. Those who study in the four professional faculties 
are comparable rather to the German medical students of the 
last clinical semesters — sedate, semi-professional men. The col- 



4o6 THE AMERICANS 

lege is the soul of the university. The college is to-day, more 
than ever, the soul of the vs^hole nation. 

We have to mention one more factor, and we shall have brought 
together all which are of prime importance. We have seen that 
the professional and the collegiate schools had at the outset 
different points of view, and were, in fact, entirely independent. 
It was inevitable that as they developed they should come into 
closer and closer relations. The name of the college remained 
during this development the general designation. Special facul- 
ties have grouped themselves about the college, while a common 
administration keeps them together. There are certain local 
difficulties in this. According to the original idea, a college ought 
to be in a small, rural, and attractively situated spot. The young 
man should be removed from ordinary conditions; and as he 
goes to Jena, Marburg, and Gottingen, so he should go to Prince- 
ton or New Haven, or Palo Alto, in order to be away from large 
cities in a little academic world which is inspired only by the glory 
of famous teachers and by the youthful happiness of many 
student generations. A medical or law school, on the other 
hand, belongs, according to American tradition, in some large 
city, where there is a plenty of clinical material at hand, and where 
great attorneys are in contact with the courts. It so happened 
that the college, as it grew up into a complete university, was 
especially favoured if it happened to be in the vicinity of a large 
city, like Harvard College in Cambridge, which had all the 
attractions of rural quiet and nevertheless was separated from 
the large city of Boston only by the Charles River bridge. In 
later times, to be sure, since the idyllic side of college life is every- 
where on the wane, and the outward equipment, especially of 
laboratories, libraries, etc., has everywhere to grow, it is a notice- 
able advantage for even collegiate prosperity to have the resources 
of a large city at hand. And, therefore, the institutions in these 
cities, like New York, Baltimore, Chicago, and San Francisco, 
develop more rapidly than many colleges which were once famous 
but which lie in more isolated places. 

At the head of the administration there is always a president, 
a man whose functions are something between those of a Rektor 
and a Kultus-Minister, most nearly, perhaps, comparable with a 
Kurator, and yet much more independent, much more dictatorial. 



THE UNIVERSITIES 407 

The direction of the university is actually concentrated in his 
person, and the rise or fall of the institution is in large measure 
dependent on his official leadership. In olden times the president 
was almost always a theologian, and at the same time was apt to 
be professor in moral philosophy. This is true to-day of none 
but small country colleges, and even there the Puritan tradition 
disappears as financial and administrative problems come to 
be important. The large universities have lately come almost 
always to place a professor of the philosophical faculty at their 
head. Almost invariably these are men of liberal endowments. 
Mostly they are men of wide outlook, and only such men are fit 
for these positions, which belong to the most influential and impor- 
tant in the country. The opinions of men like Eliot of Harvard, 
Hadley of Yale, Butler of Columbia, Shurman of Cornell, Remsen 
of Johns Hopkins, Wheeler of California, Harper of Chicago, 
Jordan of Leland Stanford, Wilson of Princeton, and of many 
others, are respected and sought on all questions of pubHc life, 
even in matters extending far beyond education. 

The university president is elected for a life term by the admin- 
istrative council — a deliberative body of men who, without emolu- 
ments, serve the destinies of the university, and in a certain sense 
are the congress of the university as compared with the president. 
They confirm appointments, regulate expenditures, and theoreti- 
cally conduct all external business for the university, although 
practically they follow in large part the recommendations of the 
faculties. The teaching body is composed everywhere of pro- 
fessors, assistant professors, and instructors. All these receive a 
fixed stipend. There are no such things as private tuition fees, and 
unsalaried teachers, like the German Privatdocenten, are virtually 
unknown. The instruction consists, in general, of courses lasting 
through a year and not a semester. The academic year begins, in 
most cases, at the end of September and closes at the end of June. 

During his four years' college course the student prefers to 
remain true to some one college. If this is a small institution, he 
is very apt, on being graduated, to attend some higher institution. 
Even the students in professional schools generally come back 
year after year to the same school till they finish their studies. 
It is only in the graduate school — that is, the German philosophical 
faculty— that migration after the German manner has come in 



4o8 THE AMERICANS 

fashion; here, in fact, the student frequently studies one year 
here and one year there, in order to hear the best speciaHsts in his 
science. Except in the state institutions of the West, the student 
pays a round sum for the year; in the larger institutions from 
one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars. In the smaller 
colleges the four years' course of study is almost wholly prescribed, 
and only in the final year is there a certain freedom of choice. 
The higher the college stands in the matter of scholarship, so 
much the more its lecture programme approaches that of a univer- 
sity; and in the foremost colleges the student is from the very 
beginning almost entirely free in his selection of studies. 

A freedom in electing between study and laziness is less known. 
The student may elect his own lectures; he must, however, attend 
at least a certain number of these, and must generally show in a 
semi-annual examination that he has spent his time to some pur- 
pose. The examinations at the end of the special courses are in 
the college substituted for a final examination. Any man receives 
a degree who has passed the written examinations in a certain 
number of courses. The examinations concern not only what has 
actually been said in the lectures, but at the same time try to bring 
out how much the student has learned outside in the way of 
reading text-books and searching into literature. Originally the 
students roomed in college buildings, but with the growth of these 
institutions this factor of college life has declined. In the larger 
universities the student is, in matters of his daily life, as free as 
the German; but dwelling in college dormitories still remains the 
most popular mode of living, since it lends a social attraction 
to academic life. 

To go over from this general plan to a more concrete presenta- 
tion, we may perhaps sketch briefly a picture of Harvard College, 
the oldest and largest academy in the country. The colony of 
Massachusetts established in 1636 a httle college in the vicinity of 
the newly founded city of Boston. The place was called Cam- 
bridge in commemoration of the English college in which some of 
the colonists had received their education. When in 1638 a young 
English minister, John Harvard, left this little academy half his 
fortune, it was decided to name the college for its first benefactor. 
The state had given ;^400, John Harvard about £800. The 
school building was one little structure, the number of students 



THE UNIVERSITIES 4.og 

was very small, and there were a few clergymen for teachers. On 
the same spot to-day stands Harvard University, like a little city 
within a city, with fifty ample buildings, with 550 members of 
the teaching staff, over five thousand students, with a regular 
annual budget of a million and a half dollars, and in the enjoy- 
ment of bequests which add year by year millions to its regular 
endowments. 

This growth has been constant, outwardly and inwardly; and 
it has grown in power and in freedom in a way that well 
befits the spirit of American institutions. Since the colonial 
regime of the seventeenth century gave to the new institution a 
deliberative body of seven men — the so-called Corporation — this 
body has perpetuated itself without interruption down to the 
present time by its own vote, and without changing any principle 
of its constitution has developed the home of Puritanism into the 
theatre of the freest investigation, and the school into a great 
university of the world. 

Now, as then, there stands at the head this body of seven mem- 
bers, each of whom is elected for life. To belong to this is es- 
teemed a high honour. Beside these, there is the board of over- 
seers of thirty members, elected by the graduates from among 
their own number. Five men are elected every June to hold 
office for six years in this advisory council. Every Harvard man, 
five years after he has received his degree of bachelor, has the 
right to vote. Every appointment and all policies of the univer- 
sity must be confirmed by this board of overseers. Only the 
best sons of the alma mater are elected to this body. Thus the 
university administration has an upper and lower house, and it 
is clear that with such closely knit internal organization the destiny 
of the university is better guarded than it would be if appointments 
and expenditures were dependent on the caprice and political 
intrigues of the party politicians in the state legislature. Just 
on this account Harvard has declined, for almost a hundred years, 
all aid from the state; although this was once customary. On 
the other hand, it would be a mistake to suppose that, say in 
contrast with Germany, this self-government of the university 
implies any greater administrative rights for the professors. The 
German professors have much more administrative influence 
than their colleagues in America. If, indeed, the advice of the 



410 THE AMERICANS 

professors in matters of new appointments or promotions is impor- 
tant, nevertheless the administrative bodies are in no wise officially 
bound to follow the recommendations of the faculty. 

The president of the university is Charles W. Eliot, the most 
distinguished and influential personality in the whole intellectual 
life of America. Eliot comes from an old Puritan family of New 
England. He was a professor of chemistry in his thirty-fifth 
year; and his essays on methods of instruction, together with his 
talents for organization, had awakened considerable attention, 
when the overseers, in spite of lively protestations from various 
sides, were prompted by keen insight in the year 1869 to call him 
to this high office. It would be an exaggeration to say that the 
tremendous growth of Harvard in the last three decades is wholly 
the work of Eliot; for this development is, first of all, the result of 
that remarkable progress which the intellectual life of the whole 
land has undergone. But the fact that Harvard during all this 
time has kept in the very front rank among all academic institu- 
tions is certainly due to the efforts of President Eliot; and once 
again, if the progress at Harvard has resulted in part from the 
scientific awakening of the whole country, this national movement 
was itself in no small measure the work of the same man. His 
influence has extended out beyond the boundaries of New England 
and far beyond all university circles, and has made itself felt in 
the whole educational life of the country. He was never a man 
after the taste of the masses; his quiet and distinguished reserve 
are too cool and deliberate. And if to-day, on great occasions, 
he is generally the most important speaker, this is really a tri- 
umph for clear and solid thought over the mere tricks of blatancy 
and rhetoric. Throughout the country he is known as the incom- 
parable master of short and pregnant English. 

His life work has contained nothing of the spasmodic; nor have 
his reforms been in any case sudden ones. Towhatever has been 
necessary he has consecrated his patient energy, going fearlessly 
toward the goal which he recognized as right, and moving slowly 
and surely forward. Year by year he has exerted an influence on 
the immediate circles of his community, and so indirectly on the 
whole land, to bring up the conditions for entrance into college 
and professional schools until at the present time all the special 
faculties of Harvard demand as an entrance requirement a com- 



THE UNIVERSITIES 411 

plete college course. He has made Harvard College over into a 
modern academy, in which every student is entirely free to select 
the course of studies which he desires, and has introduced through 
the entire university and for all time, the spirit of impartial investi- 
gation. Even the theological faculty has grown under his influence 
from a sectarian institution of the Unitarian Church into a non- 
sectarian Christian institution in which future preachers of every 
sect are able to obtain their preliminary training. And this in- 
defatigable innovator is to-day, as he now has completed his 
seventieth year, pressing forward with youthful energies to new 
goals. Just as he has introduced into the college the opportunity 
of perfectly free specialization, so now he clearly sees that if a 
college education is necessary for every future student in the 
special departments of the university, that the college course 
must be shortened from four to three years, or in other words, must 
be compressed. There is much opposition to this idea. All 
traditions and very many apparently weighty arguments seem to 
speak against it. Nevertheless, any student of average intelli- 
gence and energy can now get the Harvard A. B. in three years; 
before long this will be the rule, and in a short time the entire 
country will have followed in the steps of this reform. 

It is true that Eliot's distinguished position has contributed 
very much to his outward success — that position which he has 
filled for thirty-five years, and which in itself guarantees a peculiar 
influence on academic life. But the decisive thing has been his 
personality. He is enthusiastic and yet conservative, bold and 
yet patient, always glad to consider the objections of the young- 
est teacher; he is religious, and nevertheless a confident exponent 
of modern science. First of all, he is through and through an 
aristocrat: his interest is in the single, gifted, and solid per- 
sonality rather than in the masses; and his conception of the in- 
equality of man is the prime motive of his whole endeavour. But 
at the same time he is the best of democrats, for he lays the 
greatest stress on making it possible for the earnest spirit to press 
on and emerge from the lowest classes of the people. Harvard 
has set its roots as never before through the whole country, and 
thereby has drawn on the intellectual and moral energies of the 
entire nation. 

Under the president come the faculties, of which each one is 



^12 THE AMERICANS 

presided over by a dean. The largest faculty is the faculty of 
arts and sciences, whose members lecture both for the college 
and for the Graduate School. There is really no sharp distinction, 
and the announcement of lectures says merely that certain elemen- 
tary courses are designed for younger students in the college, and 
that certain others are only for advanced students. Moreover, 
the seminaries and laboratory courses for scientific research are 
open only to students of the Graduate School. The rest is com- 
mon ground. 

As always happens, the faculty includes very unlike material, 
a number of the most distinguished investigators, along with 
others who are first of all teachers. In general, the older gener- 
ation of men belongs to that time in which the ability to teach 
was thought more important than pure scholarship. On the 
other hand, the middle generation is much devoted to productive 
investigations. The youngest generation of instructors is some- 
what divided. A part holds the ideal of creative research, another 
part is in a sort of reactionary mood against the modern high 
estimation of specialized work; and has rather a tendency once 
more to emphasize the idealistic side of academic activity — the 
beauty of form and the cultivating value of belles-lettres as opposed 
to the dry details of scholarship. This last is generally accounted 
the peculiar work of German influence, and in opposition to this 
there is a demand for Gallic polish and that scientific connoisseur- 
ship of the English gentleman. Since, however, these men are 
thinking not of the main fact, but rather of certain insignificant 
excrescences of German work, and since after all nothing but the 
real work of investigation can lead to new achievements which 
justify in a real university any advancement to higher academic 
positions, there is no ground for fearing that this reactionary 
mood will exert any particularly harmful influence on more 
serious circles of workers. Such a movement may be even wel- 
comed as a warning against a possible ossification of science. 
Particularly the college would be untrue to its ideals, if it were 
to forget the humanities in favour of scientific matters of fact. 

The lectures naturally follow the principle of thorough-going 
specialization, and one who reads the Annual Report will prob- 
ably be surprised to discover how many students take up Assyrian 
or Icelandic, Old Bulgarian, or Middle Irish. The same special- 



THE UNIVERSITIES 413 

ization is carried into the seminaries for the advanced students; 
thus, for instance, in the department of philosophy, there are 
special seminaries for ethics, psychology, metaphysics, logic, 
sociology, pedagogy, Greek, and modern philosophy. The theo- 
logical faculty is the smallest. In spite of an admirable teaching 
staff there remains something still to do before the spirit of science 
is brought into perfect harmony with the strongly sectarian charac- 
ter of the American churches. On the other hand, the faculty of 
law is recognized as the most distinguished in the English-speak- 
ing world. The difference between the Anglo-American law 
and the Romano-German has brought it about that the entire 
arrangement and method of study here are thoroughly different 
from the German. From the very beginning law is taught by the 
study of actual decisions; the introduction of this "case system," 
in opposition to the usual text-book system, was the most decisive 
advance of all and fixed the reputation of the law faculty. And 
this system has been gradually introduced into other leading 
schools of law. The legal course lasts three years, and each 
year has its prescribed courses of lectures. In the first year, 
for instance, students take up contracts, the penal code, property 
rights, and civil processes. Perhaps the departure from the 
German method of teaching law is most characteristically shown 
by the fact that the law students are from the very first day the 
most industrious students of all. These young men have passed 
through their rather easy college days, and when now they leave 
those early years of study in the elm-shaded college yard and with- 
draw to Austin Hall, the law building of the university, they feel 
that at last they are beginning their serious life-work. In the 
upper story of Austin Hall there is a large reading-room for the 
students, with a legal reference library of over sixty thousand 
volumes. This hall is filled with students, even late at night, who 
are quite as busy as if they were young barristers industriously 
working away on their beginning practice. 

The German method is much more followed in the four-year 
medical course of studies, and still there are here striking dif- 
ferences. The medical faculty of Harvard, which is located in 
Boston on account of the larger hospitals to be found in the city, 
is at this moment in the midst of moving. Already work has been 
commenced on a new medical quadrangle with the most modern 



414. THE AMERICANS 

and sumptuous edifices. In somewhat the same way, the course 
of studies is rather under process of reformation. It is in the 
stage of experimentation, and of course it is true throughout the 
world that the astonishing advance of medicine has created new 
problems for the universities. It seems impossible now for a 
student to master the whole province, since his study time is of 
course limited. The latest attempt at reform is along the line 
of the greatest possible concentration. The student is expected 
for several months morning and night to study only anatomy, 
to hear anatomical lectures, to dissect and to use the microscope; 
and then again for several months he devotes himself entirely to 
physiology, and so on. Much is hoped, secondly, from the in- 
tuitive method of instruction. While in Germany the teaching of 
physiology is chiefly by means of lectures and demonstrations, every 
Harvard student has in addition during the period of physiological 
study to work one hundred and eighty hours on prescribed experi- 
ments, so that two hours of experimentation follow every one-hour 
lecture. In certain lines of practical instruction, especially in path- 
ological anatomy, the American is at a disadvantage compared with 
the German, since the supply of material for autopsy is limited. 
Popular democratic sentiment is very strong against the idea that a 
man who dies in a public poor-house must fall a prey to the dis- 
secting knife. The clinical demonstrations are not given in 
special university clinics, but rather in the large municipal hospi- 
tals, where all the chief physicians are pledged to give practical 
instruction in the form of demonstrations. In the third place, 
there is an increasing tendency to give to the study of medicine a 
certain mobility; in other words, to allow a rather early specializa- 
tion. As to the substance itself which is taught. Harvard's medical 
school is very much like a German university, and becomes daily 
more similar. In the American as in the German university, 
the microscope and the retort have taken precedence over the 
medicine chest. 

Harvard has about five thousand students. Any boy who 
wishes to enter must pass, at the beginning of the summer, a six- 
day written examination; and these examinations are conducted 
in about forty difi^erent places of the country under the super- 
vision of officers of the university. Any one coming from other 
universities is carefully graded according to the standard of 



THE UNIVERSITIES 4.15 

scholarship of his particular institution. The amount of study 
required is not easily determined. Unlike the German plan, 
every course of lectures is concluded at the end of the year with 
a three-hour examination, and only the man who passes the 
examination has the course in question put to his credit. Who- 
ever during the four, or perhaps three, college years has taken 
eighteen three-hour lecture courses extending through the year 
receives the bachelor's degree. In practice, indeed, the matter 
becomes enormously complicated, yet extensive administrative 
machinery regulates every case with due justice. In the legal 
and medical faculties, everything is dependent on the final exam- 
inations of the year. In the philosophical two, or more often 
three, years of study after the bachelor's degree lead to the doctor- 
ate of philosophy. 

The graduate student always works industriously through the 
year, but the college student may be one of various types. Part of 
these men work no less industriously than the advanced students; 
while another part, and by no means the worst, would not for any- 
thing be guilty of such misbehaviour. These men are not in 
Harvard to learn facts, but they have come to college for a certain 
atmosphere — in order to assimilate by reflection, as they say. Of 
course, the lectures of enthusiastic professors and a good book 
or two belong to this atmosphere; and yet, who can say that the 
hours spent at the club, on the foot-ball field, at the theatre, in the 
Boston hotel, on the river or on horse-back do not contribute quite 
as much — not to mention the informal discussions about God 
and the world, especially the literary and athletic worlds, as they 
sit together at their window seats on the crimson cushions and 
smoke their cigarettes ^. Harvard has the reputation through 
the country of being the rich man's university, and it is true that 
many live here in a degree of luxury of which few German students 
would ever think. And yet there are as many who go through 
college on the most modest means, who perhaps earn their own 
livelihood or receive financial aid from the college. A systematic 
evasion of lectures or excessive drinking or card-playing plays no 
role at all. The distinctly youthful exuberance of the students 
is discharged most especially in the field of sport, which gets an 
incomparable influence on the students' minds by means of the 
friendly rivalry between different colleges. The foot-ball game 



4i6 THE AMERICANS 

between Harvard and Yale in November, or the base-ball game 
in June, or the New London races, are national events, for which 
special trains transport thousands of visitors. Next to the histor- 
ical traditions it is indeed sport, which holds the body of Harvard 
students most firmly together, and those who belong to the same 
class most firmly of all — that is, those who are to receive their 
A. B. in the same year. Year after year the Harvard graduates 
come back to Boston in order to see their old class-mates again. 
They know that to be a Harvard man means for their whole 
life to be the body-guard of the nation. They will stand for 
Harvard, their sons will go to Harvard, and to Harvard they 
will contribute with generous hands out of their material pros- 
perity. 

Harvard reflects all the interests of the nation, and all its social 
contrasts. It has its political, religious, literary and musical 
clubs, its scientific and social organizations, its daily paper for the 
discussion of Harvard's interests, edited by students, and three 
monthly magazines; it has its public and serious parliamentary 
debates, and most popular of all, operatic performances in the 
burlesque vein given by students. Thousands of most diverse 
personalities work out their life problems in this little city of lec- 
ture halls, laboratories, museums, libraries, banquet halls, and 
club buildings, which are scattered about the ancient elm-shaded 
yard. Each student has come, in the ardour and ambition of youth, 
to these halls where so many intellectual leaders have taught and 
so many great men of the outside world have spent their student 
years; and each one goes away once more into the world a better 
and stronger man. 

One thing that a European visitor particularly expects to 
find in the lecture room of an American university is not found 
in Harvard. There are no women students in the school. Women 
graduates who are well advanced are admitted to the seminaries 
and to scientific research in the laboratories, but they are excluded 
.from the college; and the same is true of Yale, Columbia, Prince- 
ton, and Johns Hopkins. Of course. Harvard has no prejudice 
against the higher education of women; but Harvard is itself an 
institution for men. In an indirect way, the teaching staflF of 
Harvard University is utilized for the benefit of women, since 
only a stone's throw from the Harvard College gate is RadclifFe 



THE UNIVERSITIES 417 

College, which is for women, and in which only Harvard in- 
structors give lectures. 

This picture of the largest university will stand as typical for 
the others, although of course each one of the great academies 
has its own peculiarities. While Harvard seeks to unite human- 
itarian and specialized work, Johns Hopkins aims to give only the 
latter, while Yale and Princeton aim more particularly at the 
former. Johns Hopkins in Baltimore is a workshop of productive 
investigation, and in the province of natural sciences and medicine 
Johns Hopkins has been a brilliant example to the whole country. 
Yale University, in New Haven, stands first of all for culture and 
personal development, although many a shining name in scholar- 
ship is graven on the tablets of Yale. Columbia University, in 
New York, gets its peculiar character from that great city which 
is its background; and this to a much greater extent than the 
University of Chicago, which has created its own environment 
and atmosphere on the farthest outskirts of that great city. Chi- 
cago, and Cornell University at Ithaca, the University of Penn- 
sylvania, Ann Arbor in Michigan, Berkeley and Stanford in Cali- 
fornia are the principal institutions which admit women, and there- 
in are outwardly distinguished from the large institutions of the 
East. 

The male students from the West have somewhat less polish, but 
are certainly not less industrious. The Western students come 
generally out of more modest conditions, and are therefore less 
indifferent with regard to their own future. The student from 
Ann Arbor, Minnesota, or Nebraska would compare with the 
student at Yale or Princeton about as a student at Konigsberg 
or Breslau would compare with one at Heidelberg or Bonn. 
Along with that he comes from a lower level of public school 
education. The Western institutions are forced to content them- 
selves with less exacting conditions for entrance, and the South 
has at the present time no academies at all which are to be com- 
pared seriously with the great universities of the country. 

Next to Harvard the oldest university is Yale, which a short 
time ago celebrated its two-hundredth anniversary. After Yale 
comes Princeton, whose foundation took place in the middle of the 
eighteenth century. Yale was founded as a protest against the 
liberal tendencies of Harvard. Puritan orthodoxy had been 



4i8 THE AMERICANS 

rather overridden at Harvard, and so created for itself a more 
secure fortress in the colony of Connecticut. In this the mass of 
the population was strictly in sympathy with the church; the free 
spirit of Harvard was too advanced for the people, and remained 
so in a certain way for nearly two centuries. Therein has lain 
the strength of Yale. Until a short time ago Yale had the more 
popular place in the nation; it was the democratic rallying-ground 
in contrast with Harvard, which was too haughtily aristocratic. 
Yale was the religious and the conservative stronghold as con- 
trasted with the free thought and progress of Harvard. For 
some time it seemed as if the opposition of Yale against the modern 
spirit would really prejudice its higher interests, and it slowly fell 
somewhat from its great historic position. But recently, under its 
young, widely known president, Hadley, the political economist, 
it has been making energetic and very successful endeavours to 
recover its lost position. 

The history of Columbia University, in New York, began as 
early as 1754. At that time it was King's College, which after the 
War for Independence was rechristened Columbia College. But 
the real greatness of Columbia began only in the last few decades, 
with a development which is unparalleled. Under its president, 
Seth Low, the famous medical, legal, and political economical 
faculties were brought into closer relations with the college, the 
Graduate School was organized. Teachers' College was developed, 
the general entrance conditions were brought up, and on Morning- 
side Heights a magnificent new university quadrangle was erected. 
When Seth Low left the university, after ten years of irreproach- 
able and masterly administration, in order to become Mayor of 
New York in the service of the Reform party, he was succeeded 
in the presidency by Butler, a young man who since his earliest 
years had shown extraordinary talents for administration, and 
who for many years as editor of the best pedagogical magazine 
had become thoroughly familiar with the needs of academic in- 
struction. Columbia is favoured by every circumstance. If signs 
are not deceptive, Columbia will soon stand nearest to Harvard 
at the head of American universities. While Harvard and Yale, 
Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Columbia are the most successful 
creations of the Colonial days, Johns Hopkins and Chicago, Cor- 
nell and Leland Stanford are the chief representatives of those 



THE UNIVERSITIES 4.1 g 

institutions which have recently been founded by private munifi- 
cence. The state universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska, 
Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, and California may be mentioned, 
finally, as the most notable state universities. 

Johns Hopkins w^as an able railroad president, v^ho died after 
a long life, in 1873, and bequeathed seven million dollars for a 
university and academy to be founded in his native city of Balti- 
more. The administrative council elected Oilman as its presi- 
dent, and it is Oilman's memorable service to have accomplished 
that of v^^hich America w^as most in need in that moment of tran- 
sition — an academy which should concentrate its entire strength 
on the furtherance of serious scientific investigation quite with- 
out concessions to the English college idea, without any attempt 
to reach a great circle of students, or without any effort to 
annex a legal or theological faculty. Its sole aim was to attract 
really eminent specialists as teachers in its philosophical faculties, 
to equip laboratories and seminaries in the most approved manner, 
to fill these with advanced students, and to inspire these students 
with a zeal for scientific productiveness. This experiment has suc- 
ceeded remarkably. It is clear to-day that the further develop- 
ment of the American university will not consist in developing the 
special professional school, but will rather combine the ideals of 
the college with the ideals of original research. But at that time 
when the new spirit which had been imported from Germany 
began to ferment, it was of the first importance that some such 
institution should avowedly, without being hampered by any 
traditions, take up the cause of that method which seeks to initiate 
the future school-teacher into the secrets of the laboratory. Since 
Oilman retired, a short time ago, the famous chemist, Ira Rem- 
sen, has taken his place. A brilliant professor of Johns Hopkins, 
Stanley Hall, has undertaken a similar experiment on a much 
more modest scale, in the city of Worcester, with the millions 
which were given by the philanthropist Clark. His Clark Uni- 
versity has remained something of a torso, but has likewise 
succeeded in advancing the impulse for productive science in 
many directions, especially in psychology and education. 

In the year 1868, Cornell University was founded in the town 
of Ithaca, from the gifts of Ezra Cornell; and this university 
had almost exactly opposite aims. It has aimed to create a 



4^0 THE AMERICANS 

university for the people, where every man could find what he 
needed for his own education; it has become a stronghold for the 
utilitarian spirit. The truly American spirit of restless initiative 
has perhaps nowhere in the academic world found more char- 
acteristic expression than in this energetic dwelling-place of 
science. The first president was the eminent historian, Andrew - 
D. White, who was appointed later to his happy mission as 
Ambassador to Berlin. At the present day the philosopher Shur- 
man stands at the helm, whose efforts in colonial politics are widely 
known. Senator Stanford, of California, aimed to accomplish 
for the extreme West the same thing that Cornell had done for the 
East, when in memory of his deceased son he applied his entire 
property to the foundation of an academy in the vicinity of San 
Francisco. Leland Stanford is, so far as its financial endowment 
goes, probably the richest university in the country. As far as 
its internal efficiency has gone, the thirty million dollars have not 
meant so much, since the West has to depend on its own students 
and it has to take them as it finds them. In spite of this, the 
university accomplishes an excellent work in many directions 
under the leadership of the zoologist Jordan, its possibly too 
energetic president. While its rival, the State University of Cali- 
fornia, near the Golden Gate of San Francisco, is perhaps the 
most superbly situated university in the world, Leland Stanford 
can lay claim to being the more picturesque. It is a dream in 
stone conjured up under the Californian palms. Finally, quite 
different, more strenuous than all others, some say more Chi- 
cagoan, is the University of Chicago, to which the petroleum 
prince, Rockefeller, has deflected some twelve million dollars. 
The University of Chicago has everything and offers everything. 
It pays the highest salaries, it is open the whole year through, 
it has accommodations for women, and welcomes summer guests 
who come to stay only a couple of months. It has the richest 
programme of collateral lectures, of university publications and of 
its own periodicals, has an organic alliance with no end of smaller 
colleges in the country, has observatories on the hill-tops and 
laboratories by the sea; and, whatever it lacks to-day, it is bound 
to have to-morrow. It is almost uncanny how busily and ener- 
getically this university has developed itself in a few years under 
the distinguished and brilliant presidential policy of Harper. 



THE UNIVERSITIES 421 

One must admire the great work. It is possible that this place 
is still not equal to the older Eastern universities as the home of 
quiet maturity and reflection; but for hard, scholarly work it 
has few rivals in the world. 

Johns Hopkins and Cornell, Stanford and Chicago, have been 
carefully designed and built according to one consistent plan, 
while the state universities have developed slowly out of small 
colleges more like the old institutions of Colonial days. Their 
history is for the most part uneventful; it is a steady and toilsome 
working to the top, which has been limited not so much by the 
finances of the states, but rather by the conditions of the schools 
in the regions about them. The largest state university is that 
of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, not far from Detroit. In number of 
students it is next to Harvard. One of its specialties is a homoeo- 
pathic medical faculty in addition to the allopathic. 

It would be a great mistake to suppose that, with the blossom- 
ing out of the large and middle-sized universities, all of which 
have colleges as one of their departments, the small colleges have 
ceased to play their part. Quite on the contrary; in a certain 
sense the small college situated in rural seclusion has found a new 
task to work out in contrast to the great universities. It is only in 
the small college that the young student is able to come into 
personal contact with the professor, and only there can his special 
individuality be taken into account by his alma mater. One 
scheme does not fit all the students, and not only in those regions 
where the homely college represents the highest attainable in- 
struction of its kind, but also in many districts of the maturest 
culture, the college is for many youths the most favourable place 
for development. Thus the New England States would feel a 
great loss to the cause of culture if such old colleges as Williams, 
Brown, Amherst, and Dartmouth should simply deliver over its 
students to Harvard. 

These smaller colleges fulfil a special mission, therefore, and 
they do their best when they do not try to seem more than they 
really are. There was the danger that the colleges would think 
themselves improved by introducing some fragments of research 
work into their curriculum, and so spoiling a good humanitarian 
college by offering a bad imitation of a university. Of course, 
there can be no talk of a sharp separation between college and 



422 THE AMERICANS 

university, for the reasons which we have emphasized many times 
before. It is necessary, as we have seen, that there should be a long 
continuous scale from the smallest college up to the largest univer- 
sity. It is true that many of the small institutions are entirely 
superfluous, and not capable of any great development, and so 
from year to year some are bound to disappear or to be absorbed 
by others. Many are really business enterprises, and many more 
are sectarian institutions. But in general there exists among 
these institutions a healthy struggle for existence which prospers 
the strongest of them and makes them do their best. The right 
of existence of many of the small and isolated professional schools 
is much more questionable. Almost all the best medical, legal, and 
theological schools of this order have already been assimilated to 
this or that college, and the growing together of the academies 
which started separately and from small beginnings into organic 
universities is in conformity with the centralizing tendency every- 
where in progress in our time. 

Many of the smaller colleges are, like all the state institutions, 
open to both sexes. Besides these, however, there thrive certain 
colleges which are exclusively for women. The best known of these 
are Bryn Mawr, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, RadclifFe, and Barnard. 
Barnard College, in New York, stands in the same relation to 
Columbia University as Radcliffe College does to Harvard. Every 
one of these leading women's colleges has its own physiognomy, 
and appeals rather to its special type of young woman. Vassar, 
Wellesley, Smith, and Bryn Mawr lie in quiet, retired little towns 
or villages : and the four years of college life spent together by 
something like a thousand blooming, happy young women be- 
tween the years of eighteen and twenty-two, in college halls 
which are surrounded by attractive parks, are four years of ex- 
traordinary charm. Only Bryn Mawr and RadclifFe lay any 
special stress on the advanced critical work of the graduates. In 
Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley it is mostly a matter of assimilation, 
and the standard of scholarship is not much higher than that of 
the German Arbiturientenexamen, together with possibly one or 
two semesters of the philosophical faculty. In Wellesley, women 
are almost the only teachers; while in Bryn Mawr almost all are 
men, and in Smith the teachers are both men and women. 

In statistical language, the following conditions are found to 



THE UNIVERSITIES 423 

hold. If for the moment we put college and graduate schools 
together as the "philosophical faculty," there studied in the year 
1900 in the philosophical faculties, 1,308 students for every 
million inhabitants; in the legal faculties 166, in the medical 333, 
and in the theological faculties 106. Ten years previously the 
corresponding figures were 877, 72, 266, 112, respectively, and 
twenty-five years ago they were 744, 61, 196, and 120, respectively. 
Thus the increase in the last ten years has been a remarkable 
one; theology alone shows some diminution in its numbers. If we 
consider now the philosophical faculties more closely, we discover 
the surprising fact that in the last decade the male students have 
increased 61 per cent., while the female have increased 149 per 
cent. The degrees conferred in the year 1900 were as follows: 
college degrees of bachelor of arts — to men 5,129, to women 
2,140. The degree of bachelor of science, which is somewhat lower 
in its standard, and requires no classical preparation, was given to 
2,473 men and 591 women. The degree of doctor of philosophy to 
322 men and 20 women. The private endowment of all colleges 
together amounts to 360 million dollars, of which 160 million con- 
sist in income-bearing securities. The annual income amounted 
to 28 millions, not counting donations of that year, of which 11 
millions came from the fees of students, about 7 millions were the 
interest on endowments, and 7.5 millions were contributed by the 
government. Thus the student pays about 39 per cent, of what his 
tuition costs. The larger donations for the year amounted to 
about 12 millions more. The number of colleges for men or for 
both sexes was 480, for women alone 141. This figure says very 
little; since, in the case of many women's institutions, the name 
college is more monstrously abused than in any other, and in the 
West and South is assumed by every upstart girls' school. There 
are only 13 women's colleges which come up to a high standard, 
and it may at once be added that the number of polytechnic and 
agricultural schools whose conditions for entrance correspond on 
the average to those of the colleges amounts to 43. Also these 
stand on many different levels, and at the head of them all is the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston, which is now 
under the brilliant leadership of President Pritchett. Almost all 
the technical schools are state institutions. 

There were, in the year 1900, 151 medical faculties having 



424. THE AMERICANS 

25,213 students: all except three provide a four years' course of 
study. Besides these, there were 7,928 dental students studying in 
54 dental schools, and 4,042 students of pharmacy in 53 separate 
institutions. There were 12,516 law students, and 8,009 theo- 
logical students. Out of the law students 151, and of the theo- 
logical 181, were women. 



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 

Science 

ONE who surveys, without prejudice, the academic life of the 
country in reference to scientific work will receive a deep 
impression of the energy and carefulness with which this 
enormous national machinery of education furthers the higher 
intellectual life. And the continuous gradation of institutions 
by which the higher academy is able to adapt itself to every local 
need, so that no least remnant of free initiative can be lost and 
unlimited development is made possible at every point, must 
be recognized by every one as the best conceivable system for the 
country. 

It is not to be denied that it brings with it certain difficulties 
and disadvantages. The administrative difficulties which pro- 
ceed from the apparent incomparability of the institutions are 
really not serious, although the foreigner who is accustomed 
to uniformity in his universities. Gymnasia, certificates and 
doctorial diplomas, is inclined to overemphasize these diffi- 
culties in America. The real disadvantages of the system of 
continuous gradations is found, not in the outer administration, 
but in its inner methods. The German undergraduate takes the 
attitude of one who learns; his teacher must be thoroughly well 
informed, but no one expects a school-teacher himself to advance 
science. The graduate student, on the other hand, is supposed 
to take a critical attitude, and therefore his teacher has to be a 
teacher of methods — that is, he must be a productive investigator. 
Wherever, as in Germany, there lies a sharp distinction between 
these two provinces, it is easy to keep the spirit of investigation 
pure; but where, as in America, one merges into the other, 
the principles at stake are far too likely to be confused. Men 
who fundamentally are nothing but able school-teachers are then 



426 THE AMERICANS 

able to work up and stand beside the best investigators in the 
university faculties, because the principle of promotion on the 
ground of scientific production solely cannot be so clearly sepa- 
rated from the methods of selection which are adapted to the 
lower grades of instruction. To be sure, this has its advantages 
in other directions; because, in so far as there is no sharp demar- 
cation, the spirit of investigation can also grow from above down, 
and therefore in many a smaller college there will be more pro- 
ductive scientists teaching than would be found, perhaps, in a 
German school; but yet the influences of the lower on the higher 
departments of instruction are the predominant ones. Investi- 
gation thrives best when the young scholar knows that his ad- 
vancement depends ultimately on strictly scientific achievements, 
and not on work of a popular sort, nor on success in the teaching of 
second-hand knowledge. This fact has often been brought home 
to the public mind in recent years, and the leading universities 
have already more and more recognized the principle of con- 
sidering scientific achievements to be the main ground for pre- 
ferment. 

But productive scholarship is interfered with in still other 
ways. Professors are often too much busied with administra- 
tive concerns; and although this sort of administrative influence 
may be attractive for many professors, its exercise requires much 
sacrifice of time. More particularly, the professors of most in- 
stitutions, although there are many exceptions among the leading 
universities, are overloaded with lectures, and herein the graded 
transition from low to high works unfavourably. Especially 
in Western institutions, the administrative bodies do not see why 
the university professor should not lecture as many hours in the 
week as a school teacher; and most dangerous of all, as we have 
already mentioned in speaking of popular education, is the fact 
that the scholar is tempted, by high social and financial rewards, 
to give scientifically unproductive popular lectures and to write 
popular essays. 

And the list of factors which have worked against scientific 
productiveness can be still further increased. To be sure, it would 
be false here to repeat the old tale that the American professor 
is threatened in his freedom by the whimsical demands of rich 
patrons, who have founded or handsomely endowed many of the 



SCIENCE 427 

universities. That is merely newspaper gossip; and the three or 
four cases which have busied pubhc opinion in the last ten years 
and have been ridiculously overestimated, are found, on closer 
inspection, to have been cases which could have come up as well 
in any non-partisan institution in the world. There may have 
been mistakes on both sides; perhaps the university councils 
have acted with unnecessary rigour or lack of tact, but it has yet 
to be proved that there has been actual injustice anywhere. 
Even in small colleges purely scientific activity never interferes 
with the welfare of a professor. A blatant disrespect for religion 
would hurt his further prospects there, to be sure, just as in 
the Western state institutions the committees appointed by the 
legislature would dislike a hostile political attitude. Yet not even 
in the smallest college has any professor ever suffered the least 
prejudice by reason of his scientific labours. Science in America 
is not hampered by any lack of academic freedom. 

On the other hand, the American university lacks one of the 
most important forces of German universities — the Privatdocent, 
who lives only for science, and without compensation places his 
teaching abilities in the service of his own scientific development. 
The young American scholar is welcome only where a paid posi- 
tion is vacant; but if he finds no empty instructorship in a large 
university, he is obliged to be content with a position in a small 
college, where the entire intellectual atmosphere, as regards the 
studies, apparatus, and amount of work exacted, all work against 
his desire to be scientifically productive, and finally perhaps 
kill it entirely. The large universities are just beginning to 
institute the system of voluntary docents — which, to be sure, en- 
counters administrative difficulties. There is also a dangerous 
tendency toward academic in-breeding. The former students of 
an institution are always noticeably preferred for any vacant 
position, and the claims of capable scholars are often disregarded 
for the sake of quite insignificant men. Scientific productiveness 
meets further with the material obstacle of the high cost of print- 
ing in America, which makes it often more difficult for the young 
student here than in Germany to find a publisher for his works. 

Against all this there are some external advantages: first, the 
lavishness of the accessories of investigation. The equipment 
of laboratories, libraries, museums, observatories, special insti- 



^8 THE AMERICANS 

tutes, and the fitting out of expeditions yield their due bene- 
fits. Then there are various sorts of free assistance — fellowships, 
travelling scholarships, and other foundations — which make every 
year many young scholars free for scientific work. There is 
also the admirable "sabbatical year." The large universities 
give every professor leave of absence every seventh year, with the 
express purpose of allowing him time for his own scholarly 
labours. Another favourable circumstance is the excellent habit 
of work which every American acquires during his student years; 
and here it is not to be doubted that the American is on the 
average, and in consequence of his system has to be, more in- 
dustrious than the German average student. From the begin- 
ning of his course, he is credited with only such lecture courses as 
he has passed examinations on, and these are so arranged as to 
necessitate not only presence at the lectures, but also the study of 
prescribed treatises; the student is obliged to apply himself 
with considerable diligence. A student who should give him- 
self entirely to idling, as may happen in Germany, would not 
finish his first college year. If the local foot-ball gossip is no 
more sensible than the talk at duelling clubs, at least the 
practice of drinking beer in the morning and playing skat have 
no evil counterpart of comparable importance in America. The 
American student recreates himself on the athletic field rather 
than in the ale-house. Germany is exceedingly sparing of time 
and strength during school years, but lets both be wasted in the 
universities to the great advantage of a strong personality here 
and there, but to the injury of the average man. America 
wastes a good deal of time during school years, but is more 
sparing during the college and university courses, and there 
accustoms each student to good, hard work. 

And most of all, the intellectual make-up of the American is 
especially adapted to scientific achievements. This tempera- 
ment, owing to the historical development of the nation, has so far 
addressed itself to political, industrial, and judicial problems, 
but a return to theoretical science has set in; and there, most of all, 
the happy combination of inventiveness, enthusiasm, and per- 
sistence in pursuit of a goal, of intellectual freedom and elasticity, 
of feeling for form and of idealistic instinct for self-perfection will 
yield, perhaps soon, remarkable triumphs. 



SCIENCE 429 

We have hitherto spoken only of the furtherance of science by 
the higher institutions of learning, but we must look at least 
hastily on what is being done outside of academic circles. We 
see, then, first of all, the magnificent government institutions at 
Washington which, without doing any teaching, are in the sole 
service of science. The cultivation of the sciences by twenty- 
eight special institutions and an army of 6,000 persons, conducted 
at an annual expense of more than ^8,000,000, is certainly a 
unique feature of American government. There is no other 
government in the world which is organized for such a many- 
sided scientific work; and nevertheless, everything which is done 
there is closely related to the true interests of government — that 
is, not to the interests of the dominant political party, but to those 
of the great self-governing nation. All the institutes, as different 
as they are in their special work, have this in common — that they 
work on problems which relate to the country, population, 
products, and the general conditions of America, so that they 
meet first of all the national needs of an economical, social, 
intellectual, political, and hygienic sort, and only in a secondary 
way contribute to abstract science. 

The work of these government institutes is peculiar, moreover, 
in that the results are published in many handsomely gotten-up 
volumes, and sent free of cost to hundreds of thousands of appli- 
cants. The institutions are devoted partly to science and partly 
to political economy. Among the scientific institutes are the ad- 
mirable Bureau of Geological Survey, which has six hundred offi- 
cials, and undertakes not only geological but also palaeontological 
and hydrographic investigations, and carries on mineralogical and 
lithological laboratories; then the Geodetic Survey, which studies 
the coasts, rivers, lakes, and mountains of the country; the Marine 
Observatory, for taking astronomical observations; the Weather 
Bureau, which conducts more than one hundred and fifty meteoro- 
logical stations; the Bureau of Biology, which makes a special study 
of the geographical distribution of plants and animals; the Bureau 
of Botany, which studies especially all problems connected with 
seeds; the Bureau of Forestry, which scientifically works on 
questions of the national timber supply; the important Bureau 
of Entomology, which has studied with great success the relations 
of insects to agriculture; the Bureau of Agriculture, which 



430 THE AMERICANS 

statistically works out experiments on planting, and which di- 
rects government experiment stations situated throughout the 
country; the Department of Fisheries, which conducts stations 
for marine biology; and many others. Among the political 
economic institutes in the broad sense of the word are the Bu- 
reau of Labour, which undertakes purely sociological investi- 
gations into labour conditions; the Corporation Bureau, which 
studies the conditions of organized business; the Bureau of Gen- 
eral Statistics; the Census Bureau, which every ten years takes 
a census more complete than that of any other country. The 
Census of 1890 consisted of 39 large folio volumes, and the col- 
lecting of information alone cost ^10,000,000. The Census of 1900 
is still in course of publication. The Bureau of Education also 
belongs here, which studies purely theoretically the statistics of 
education. Then there are the Bureau of Immigration and 
several others. All these bureaus are really designed to impart 
instruction and advice; they have no authority to enforce any 
measures. But the extraordinary publicity which is given to 
their printed reports gives them a very considerable influence; 
and the thoroughness with which the investigations are carried 
on, thanks to the liberal appropriations of Congress, makes of 
these bureaus scientific and economic institutions of the highest 
order. 

We have still to speak of the most famous of the government 
bureaus, the Smithsonian Institution. In 1836 the government 
came into the possession, by bequest, of the whole property of the 
Englishman Smithson, as a principal with which an institution 
should be founded bearing his name, and serving the advance and 
dissemination of science. It was never known just why this 
Oxonian and mineralogist left his large property to the city of 
Washington, which then numbered only 5,000 inhabitants. Al- 
though he had never visited America, he wrote to a friend: "The 
best blood of England flows in my veins; my father's family 
is from Northumberland, my mother's is related to kings. But 
I desire to have my name remembered when the titles of the 
Northumberlands and the Percys shall have been forgotten." 
His instinct guided him aright, and the Smithsonian Institution 
is to-day an intellectual centre in Washington — that city which is 
the political centre of the New World. It should be mentioned, 



SCIENCE 431 

in passing, that Congress accepted the bequest only after Hvely 
opposition; it was objected that to receive the gift of a foreigner 
was beneath the dignity of the government. As a fact, however, 
the success of the institution is not due so much to this foreign 
endowment as to the able labours of its three presidents: the 
physicist Henry, who served from 1846 to 1878, the zoologist 
Baird from 1878 to 1887, and the physicist Langley, who has 
been at the head since 1887. All three have been successful in 
finding ways by which the institute could serve the growth and 
dissemination of science. 

It was agreed from the outset not to found a university which 
would compete with others already existing, but an institute to 
complement all existing institutions, and to be a sort of centre 
among them. The great institution was divided into the follow- 
ing divisions: first, the National Museum, in which the visible 
results of all the national expeditions and excavations are gath- 
ered and arranged. The American idea is that a scientific mu- 
seum should not be a series of articles with their labels, but 
rather a series of instructive labels, illustrated by typical speci- 
mens. Only in this way, it is thought, does a museum really help 
to educate the masses. The collection, which is visited every 
year by more than 300,000 persons, includes 750,000 ethnological 
and anthropological objects; almost 2,000,000 zoological, 400,000 
botanical, and almost 300,000 palaeontological specimens. Then 
there is the National Zoological Park, which contains animal 
species that are dying out; the Astrophysical Observatory, in 
which Langley carries on his famous experiments on the invisible 
portion of the solar spectrum; the Ethnological Bureau, which 
specially studies the Indian; and much else. The department of 
exchanges of this institute is a unique affair; it negotiates ex- 
changes between scientists, libraries, and other American insti- 
tutions, and also between these and European institutions. As 
external as this service may seem, it has become indispensable 
to the work of American science. Moreover, the library of the 
institution is among the most important in the country; and its 
zoological, ethnological, physical, and geological publications, 
which are distributed free to 4,000 libraries, already fill hundreds 
of volumes. 

Any one examining the many-sided and happily circumstanced 



432 THE AMERICANS 

scientific work of these twenty-eight institutes at Washington 
will come to feel that the equipment could be used to better 
advantage if actual teaching were to be undertaken, and that the 
organization of the institutes into a national university attracting 
students from all parts of the country would tend to stimulate 
their achievements. In fact, the thought of a national university 
as the crowning point of the educational system of the country 
has always been entertained in Washington; and those who 
favour this idea are able to point to George Washington as the 
one who first conceived such a plan. In spite of vigorous agita- 
tion, this plan is still not realized, chiefly because the traditions 
of the country make education the concern of the separate states, 
and reserve it for such institutions as are independent of politics. 

It is a different question, whether the time will not come when 
the nation will desire an institution of a higher sort — one which 
will not rival the other large universities of the country, but will 
stand above them all and assume new duties. A purely scientific 
institution might exist, admitting students only after they have 
passed their doctorial examination, and of which the professors 
should be elected by the vote of their colleagues through the 
country. There is much need of such a university; but the time 
may not be ripe for it now, and it may be a matter of the far 
future. And yet at the present rate at which science is develop- 
ing in the country, the far future means only ten or fifteen years 
hence. When the time is ripe, the needed hundreds of millions of 
dollars will be forthcoming. 

For the present, a sort of half-way station to a national uni- 
versity at Washington has been reached. This is the Carnegie 
Institute, whose efficiency can so far not be wholly estimated. 
With a provisional capital of $10,000,000 given by Andrew Car- 
negie, it is proposed to aid scientific investigations throughout 
the country, and on the recommendation of competent men to 
advance to young scientists the necessary means for productive 
investigations. There is, unfortunately, a danger here that in this 
way the other universities and foundations of the country may 
feel relieved of their responsibility, and so relax their efforts. It 
may be that people will look to the centre for that which formerly 
came from the periphery, and that in this way the general industry 
will become less intense. Most of all, the Carnegie Institute 



SCIENCE 433 

has, up to this point, lacked broad fruitful ideas and a real pro- 
gramme of what it proposes to do. If the institute cannot do 
better than it has so far done, it is to be feared that its arbitrary 
and unsystematic aid will do, in the long run, more harm than 
good to the scientific life of the country. 

The same general conditions, on a smaller scale and with 
many variations, are found outside of Washington in a hundred 
different scientific museums and collections — biological, hygienic, 
medical, historical, economic, and experimental institutions; 
zoological and botanical gardens; astronomical observatories; 
biological stations, which are found sometimes under state or 
city administration, sometimes under private or corporate man- 
agement. Thus the Marine Laboratory at Woods Hole is a 
meeting-place every summer for the best biologists. Sometimes 
important collections can be found in the most unlikely places — 
as, for instance, in the historic museum of the city of Salem, which, 
although it has gone to sleep to-day, is still proud of its history. 
The large cities, however, like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, 
Chicago, and Baltimore, have established admirable institutions, 
on which scientific work everywhere depends. Then there are 
the political capitals, such as Albany, with their institutions. 
That German who is most thoroughly acquainted with conditions 
of scientific collections. Professor Meyer, the director of the 
scientific museums at Dresden, has given his opinion in his admira- 
ble work on the museums of the Eastern United States as follows: 
"I have received a profound impression of American capabilities 
in this direction, and can even say that the museums of natural 
history of that country are generally on a higher plane than those 
of Europe. We have, so far as buildings and administrative 
machinery go, very few good and many moderate or downright 
poor museums, while the Americans have many more good and 
many fewer bad ones; and those which are poor are improv- 
ing at the rapid American pace, while with us improvement is 
hopelessly slow." 

There is still another important factor in the scientific societies, 
whose membership, to be sure, is chiefly composed of the per- 
sonnel of the higher educational institutions, but which never- 
theless exert an independent influence on scientific life. The 
National Academy of Science is ofl&cially at the head. It was 



434- 'J'HE AMERICANS 

founded in 1863, having a hundred members and electing five 
new members each year. While its annual meetings in Wash- 
ington observe only the ordinary scientific programme, the society 
has as a special function the advising of Congress and the govern- 
ment on scientific matters. Thus, this academy drev^ up the 
plans for organizing the Geological Survey and for replanting the 
national forests. The political atmosphere of Washington, how- 
ever, has not been too favourable to the success of the Academy, 
and it has never attained the national significance of the Paris and 
London academies. 

The American Historical Association has a similar character; 
and its transactions are published at the expense of the govern- 
ment. The popular associations, of course, reach much larger 
circles; thus, for instance, the American Society for the Advance- 
ment of Science, which has existed for fifty years, has about the 
same functions as the German Naturforscherversammlung. It 
brings together at its annual meetings, which are always held in 
different places, a thousand or so scientists, and holds in different 
sections a great many lectures. Still more popular are the meet- 
ings of the similarly organized National Educational Association, 
which brings together more than ten thousand members at its sum- 
mer meetings, which are often held in pleasant and retired spots. 
In these and similar sessions, scientific work is popularized, while in 
the specialized societies it is stimulated toward greater profundity. 
In fact, there is no medical, natural-historical, legal, theologi- 
cal, historical, economic, philological, or philosophical specialty 
which has not its special national societies with annual congresses. 
It is increasingly the custom to hold these popular sessions during 
the summer holidays, but the strictly scientific congresses during 
the first week in January. The physicians, by exception, meet 
at Easter. In order that the business-like separation of subjects 
may not exclude a certain contact of scientific neighbours, it 
is increasingly the plan to organize groups of congresses; thus, 
the seven societies of anatomy, physiology, morphology, plant 
physiology, psychology, anthropology, and folk-lore always meet 
at the same time in the same city. 

Besides these wandering meetings, finally, there are the local 
societies. Of these, the veteran is the Academy in Philadelphia. 
It was founded by Franklin in 1743, and so far as its membership 



SCIENCE 435 

goes, may claim to have a national character. In a similar way 
the American Academy, founded in 1780, has its home in Boston. 
Then there are the New York Academy, the Washington Academy, 
which has recently enlarged so as to include members from the 
whole country, and which ultimately will probably merge into 
the National Academy; the academies of Baltimore, Chicago, 
New Haven, and a hundred smaller associations, which for the 
most part are not merely interested in spreading scientific in- 
formation, but in helping on the results of science. 

We cannot hope to call the complete roll here of scientific 
production. Our purpose was merely to relate some of the favour- 
able and unfavourable influences under which the American has 
to make his contribution to the science of the day. Merely for 
a first orientation, we may give some more detailed accounts in a 
few departments. At first sight, one might be tempted to give 
a sketch of present-day production by directly depicting the pro- 
duction with reference to the special higher institutions. Much 
more than in Germany, the results of scientific research are brought 
before the public eye with the oflScial seal of some university. 
Every large educational institution publishes its own contribu- 
tions to many different sciences; thus, the University of Chicago, 
which perhaps goes furthest in this respect, publishes journals 
of sociology, pedagogy, biblical studies, geology, astronomy, bot- 
any, etc.; and, besides these, regular series of studies in science, 
government, classical philology, Germanic and Romance lan- 
guages, English philology, anthropology, and physiology. Johns 
Hopkins University publishes mathematical, chemical, and bio- 
logical magazines; a journal for experimental medicine, one for 
psychiatry, for modern philology, for history, and Assyriology. 
Among the periodical publications of Harvard University, the 
astronomical, zoological, cryptogamic, ethnological. Oriental, clas- 
sical philological, modern philological, historical, and econom- 
ic journals are the best known. Columbia, Pennsylvania, and 
several other universities publish equally many journals. There 
are also a great many books published under the auspices of insti- 
tutions of learning, which relate to expeditions or other special 
matters. Thus, for instance, Yale University, on the occasion 
of its two-hundredth anniversary in 1901, published commemo- 
rative scientific papers by its professors in twenty-five large 



436 THE AMERICANS 

volumes; the papers themselves ranging from such subjects as 
the Hindu epic and Greek metre to thermo-dymamics and physi- 
ological chemistry. 

The various universities have always been knov^n to have 
their scientific specialties. That of Johns Hopkins is natural 
science; of Columbia, the science of government; of Harvard, 
literature and philosophy. But the universities are, of course, 
not confined to their specialties; for instance, Johns Hopkins has 
done very much in philology, Columbia in biology, and v^hile 
Harvard has been famous for its literary men, like Longfellov^, 
Holmes, Norton and Child, it has also had such distinguished 
men on its faculty as the zoologist Agassiz, the botanist Gray, 
and the astronomer Pickering. 

It may be more natural to classify scientific production accord- 
ing to the separate sciences. The list is too long to be given 
entire. The venerable subject of philosophy is generally placed 
first in the university catalogues of lectures. This subject shows 
at once how much and how little is being done. A German, to 
be sure, is apt to have false standards in this matter; for if he 
thinks of German philosophy, he recalls the names of Kant, 
Schopenhauer, Fichte, and Hegel; and he asks what America has 
produced to compare with these. But we have seen that the 
work of productive science was commenced in the New World 
only a few decades ago, and for this reason we must compare the 
present day in America with the present day in Germany; and to 
be just, we should compare the American scholar only with the 
younger and middle-aged Germans who have developed under 
the scientific conditions of the last thirty years — that is, with men 
not over sixty years old. Young geniuses are not plentiful, even 
in Germany to-day; and not only are men like Kant and Hegel 
lacking in philosophy, but also in other departments of science; 
men like Ranke and Helmholtz seem not to belong to our day of 
specialization. A new wave of idealistic and broadly generaliz- 
ing thought is advancing. The time of great thinkers will come 
again; but a young country is not to be blamed for the spirit of 
the times, nor ought its present accomplishment to be measured 
after the standards of happier days. If we make a perfectly fair 
comparison, we shall find that American philosophy is at present 
up to that of any other country. 



SCIENCE 437 

Externally, in the first place, America makes a massive show- 
ing, even if vfe leave out of account philosophical literature of 
the more popular sort. While, for example, England has only 
two really important philosophical magazines, America has at 
least five which are as good as the English; and if philosophy 
is taken in the customary wider sense, sociological and peda- 
gogical journals must be included, which are nowhere surpassed. 
The emphasis is laid differently in America and Germany; and 
this difference, which may be seen in almost all sciences, gen- 
erally, though not always, has deeper grounds than merely 
personal ones, and is in every case apt to distort the judgment 
of a foreigner. America, for instance, is astonishingly unpro- 
ductive in the history of philosophy. Every need seems to be 
satisfied by translations from the German or by very perfunc- 
tory text-book compilations. On the other hand, the theory 
of knowledge, ethics, and above all psychology, are very pros- 
perous. Disputes in epistemology have always been carried on 
in America, and the Calvinistic theology, more especially, arrived 
at important conclusions. At the beginning of the eighteenth 
century lived Jonathan Edwards, who was perhaps the greatest 
metaphysical mind in the history of America. The transcen- 
dental way of thought, which is profoundly planted in the Ameri- 
can soul, was nurtured by German idealism, and found expression 
through the genius of Emerson. Then, in more systematic and 
academic ways, there have been philosophers like Porter and Mc- 
Cosh, who stood under Scotch influence and fought against posi- 
tivism; others, like Harris and Everett, who have represented Ger- 
man tendencies; while Draper, Fiske, Cope, Leconte, and others 
have preached the philosophy of science. In the front ranks to- 
day of philosophers are Ladd, Dewey, Fullerton, Bowne, Ormond, 
Howison, Santayana, Palmer, Strong, Hibben, Creighton, Lloyd, 
and most influential of all, Royce, whose latest work, "The 
World and the Individual," is perhaps the most significant 
epistemological system of our day. 

Psychology is the most favoured of all the philosophical disci- 
plines in America at the present time. This is shown outwardly 
in the growth of laboratories for experimental psychology, which 
in size and equipment far exceed those of Europe. America has 
more than forty laboratories. Foremost in this psychological 



^^8 THE AMERICANS 

movement is William James, who is, next to Wundt, the most dis- 
tinguished psychologist living, and whose remarkable analysis 
of conscious phenomena has been set down with a freshness and 
liveliness, an energy and discrimination, which are highly charac- 
teristic of American intellect. Then there are other well-known 
investigators like Stanley Hall, Cattell, Baldwin, Ladd, Sanford, 
Titchener, Angell, Miss Calkins, Scripture, and many others. In 
pedagogy, which is now disporting itself in a great display of 
paper and ink, the names of Harris, Eliot, Butler, Hall, Da Garmo, 
and Hanus are the most respected. 

Just as theological and metaphysical speculations, ever since 
the early Colonial days, have preceded present-day scientific philos- 
ophy, so in the science of history systematic investigators were 
preceded in early days by the Colonial historians, beginning with 
Bradford and Winthrop. A people which are so restless to make 
history, so proud of their doings, so grateful to their heroes, and 
which more than any other people base their law and public policy 
avowedly on precedent, will necessarily have enjoyed the recount- 
ing of their own past. America has had a systematic history, how- 
ever, only since the thirties, and two periods of work are generally 
distinguished; an earlier one, in which historians undertook to 
cover the whole subject of American history, or at least very large 
portions of it, and a later period embracing the last decade, in 
which historical interest has been devoted to minuter studies. 
Bancroft and Parkman stand for the first movement. George 
Bancroft began to write his history in 1830, and worked patiently 
thereon for half a century. By 1883 the development of the coun- 
try, from its discovery up to the adoption of the American Consti- 
tution, had been completed in a thorough-going fashion. Park- 
man was the greater genius, and one who opened an entirely new 
perspective in American history by his investigations and fascinat- 
ing descriptions of the wars between the English and the French 
colonists. The great works of Hildreth and Tucker should also 
be mentioned here. 

The period of specialized work, of course, covers less ground. 
The large monographs of Henry Adams, John Fiske, Rhodes, 
Schouler, McMaster, Eggleston, Roosevelt, and of Von Hoist, if 
an adoptive son of America may be included, are accounted the 
best pieces of work. They have described American history 



SCIENCE 439 

partly by geographical regions and partly by periods; and they 
show great diversity of style, as may be seen by comparing the 
martial tone of Hoist and the majestic calmness of Rhodes. To 
these must be added the biographies, of which the best known 
form the series of "American Statesmen." Americans are par- 
ticularly fond of studying a portion of national history from the 
life of some especially active personality. Then too, for twenty 
years, there has been a considerable and indispensable fabrication 
of historical research. Large general works and reference books, 
like those of Winsor, Hart, and others; the biographies, archive 
studies, correspondences, local histories, often published by 
learned societies; series of monographs, journals, the chief of 
which is the American Historical Review — in short, everything 
necessary to the modern cultivation of historical science are to 
be found abundantly. The Revolution, the beginnings of the 
Federation, the Civil War, and Congress are specially favoured 
topics. It is almost a matter of course that the independent inves- 
tigation into European history is very little attempted; although 
very good things have been done, such as Prescott's work on 
Spanish history. Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic; and in 
recent times, for instance, Taylor has made important studies in 
English history, Perkins in French, Henderson in German, Thayer 
in Italian, Lea and Emerton in ecclesiastical history, Mahan in 
the history of naval warfare, and similarly others. 

This lively interest in philosophy and history is itself enough 
to disprove the old fable that American science is directed only 
toward material ends. Perhaps, to be sure, some one might say 
that philosophy is practiced to better mankind and history to 
teach politicians some practical lessons, while both statements 
are in point of fact false. No such charge, however, can be made 
against classical philology; and yet no one can read the trans- 
actions, which constitute many volumes, of the five hundred mem- 
bers of the Philological Association, or read the numbers of the 
American Journal of Philology^ or the classical studies published 
by Harvard, Cornell, and Chicago, without feeling distinctly that 
here is scientific work of the strictest sort, and that the methods 
of investigations are steadily improving. The movement is 
younger in this department than in the others. To be sure, the 
classical authors have been well known in America for two cen- 



440 THE AMERICANS 

turies; but in no province has the dilettanteism of the English 
gentleman so thoroughly prevailed. It was not until the young 
philologians commenced to visit German universities, and espe- 
cially Gottingen, that a thorough-going philology was introduced. 
And such a work as the forty-four students of the great classicist, 
Gildersleeve, published on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, 
would have been impossible twenty years ago. The greatest in- 
terest is devoted to syntactical investigation, in which the best- 
known works are those of Goodwin, Gildersleeve, and Hale; while 
there are some works on lexicography and comparative languages, 
and fewer still on textual criticism. Every classical philologian 
knows the names of Hadley, Beck, Allen, Lane, Warren, Smyth, 
White, Wheeler, Shorey, Dressier, and many others. 

There is an unusual interest in Oriental philology, which is 
slightly influenced indeed by practical motives. For instance, 
the great religious interest taken in the Bible — not by scientists, 
but by the general public — has sent out special expeditions and 
done much to advance the study of cuneiform inscriptions. The 
Assyrian collections of the University of Pennsylvania are account- 
ed, in many respects, the most complete in existence. Its curator, 
Hilprecht, is well known, and Lyon, Haupt, and others almost as 
well. Whitney, of Yale, was undoubtedly the leader in Sanskrit. 
Lanman, of Harvard, is his most famous successor, and besides 
him are Jackson, Buck, Bloomfield, and others. Toy is the great 
authority on Semitic languages. 

It would lead us too far away if we were to follow philological 
science into modern languages. As a matter of course, the Eng- 
lish language and literature are the most studied; in fact, English 
philology has had its real home in the New World since the days 
of Child. Francis James Child, one of the most winning person- 
alities in the history of American scholarship, has contributed 
much on Chaucer and ancient English dramas; and as his great 
work, has gathered together English and Scottish ballads into a 
collection of ten volumes. This work has often been esteemed 
as America's greatest contribution to philology. Kittredge, who 
has succeeded Child at Harvard, works on much the same lines. 
Lounsbury is known especially for his brilliant works on Chaucer; 
Manley has also studied Chaucer and the pre-Shakesperian 
drama; Gummere the early ballads, while Wendell and Furness 



SCIENCE 441 

are the great Shakesperian scholars. The Arthurian legends have 
been especially studied by Schofield, Mead, Bruce, and others; 
the Anglo-Saxon language by Bright, Cook, Brown, and Calla- 
way. Lowell was the first great critic of literature, and he has 
been followed by Gates and many others. The belles-lettres them- 
selves have given rise to a large historical and critical literature, 
such as the admirable general works of Steadman, Richardson, 
and Tyler, and the monographs by Woodberry, Cabot, Norton, 
Warner, and Higginson. The very best work, however, on Amer- 
ican literature, in spite of all aspersions cast on the extreme aristo- 
crat, is Barrett Wendell's " Literary History of America." We 
might mention a long list of works on Romance and Germanic 
languages and literature. At least emphasis must be laid on one, 
Kuno Francke's extraordinary book on "Social Influences in Ger- 
man Literature," the work of the most gifted herald of German 
culture in America. We may also mention the works of Thomas 
and Hempl in Germanic, and Todd, Elliot, and Cohn in romance 
languages. 

Political economy is the favourite study of the American, since 
the history of this country has been determined by economic 
factors more directly than that of any other nation, and since all 
the different economic periods have been lived through in the still 
surveyable past. In a sense, the country looks like a tremendous 
experimental laboratory of political economy. The country is so 
unevenly developed that the most diverse economic stages are to 
be found in regions which are geographically near each other, and 
everything goes on, as it were, under the scientific magnifying glass 
of the statistical student. Remarkably enough, the actual history 
of economics has been rather neglected in American studies, in spite 
of many beginnings made in Germany on the history of American 
economics. The chief attention of the nation has been given 
rather to the systematic analysis and deductive investigation of 
special conditions. In political economy there are, of course, first 
the well-known agitators like Henry Carey, the great protection- 
ist of the first half of the century; Henry George, the single-tax 
theorist, whose book, "Progress and Poverty," found in 1879 ex- 
traordinary circulation ; and Bellamy, whose "Utopia" was in much 
the same style: and the political tracts on economic subjects are 
far too numerous to think of mentioning. The really scientific 



442 THE AMERICANS 

works form another group. At first we find the pioneer efforts of 
the seventies and eighties — Wells's work on tariff and commerce, 
Charles Francis Adams's work on railways, Sumner's on the history 
of American finance, Atkinson's on production and distribution, 
Wright's on wages, Knox's on banking, and the general treatises 
of Walker, who conducted the censuses of 1870 and 1880. In 
recent times the chief works are those of Hadley on railroads, of 
Clark on capital, of James on political finance and municipal 
administration, of Ely on taxation, of Taussig on tariff, silver 
and wages, of Jenks on trusts, of Brooks on labour movements, 
of Seligman on the politics of taxation, of H. C. Adams on scien- 
tific finance, of Gross on the history of English economics, of 
Patten on economic theory, and of Lowell on the science of 
government. Moreover, the political economists and students 
of government have an unusually large number of journals 
at their disposal. In sociology there are Giddings, Small, and 
Ward, known everywhere, and after them Willcox, Ripley, 
and others. 

We have spent too much time over the historical disciplines. 
Let us look at the opposite pole of the scientific globe from the 
mental sciences to the natural sciences, and at first to mathematics. 
Mathematicians were especially late in waking up to really scien- 
tific achievements; and this was scarcely ten years ago, so that all 
the productive mathematicians are the younger professors. Of 
the older period, there are but three mathematicians of great impor- 
tance — Benjamin Peirce, perhaps the most brilliant of American 
mathematicians, and his pupils, Hill and Newcomb. Their 
chief interest has been mathematical astronomy. Of their gene- 
ration are also Willard Gibbs in mathematical physics, McClin- 
tock In algebra, and Charles Peirce In mathematical logic. In 
the last ten years. It Is no longer a question of a few great names. 
The younger generation has taken its inspiration from Germany 
and France, and Is busily at work In pure mathematics; there are 
Moore and Dixon, of Chicago; Storey and Taber, of Clark; Bocher 
and Osgood, of Harvard; White at Evanston; Van Vleck at Wes- 
leyan, and many others. 

We find again, in the natural sciences, that the American by no 
means favours only practical studies. There is no less practical a 
science than astronomy, and yet we find a series of great successes. 



SCIENCE 443 

This is externally noticeable in a general interest in astronomy; 
no other country in the world has so many well-equipped obser- 
vatories as the United States, and no other country manufactures 
such perfect astronomical lenses. America has perfected the 
technique of astronomy. Roland, for instance, has improved the 
astronomical spectroscope, and Pickering has made brilliant con- 
tributions to photometry. The catalogue of stars by Gould and 
Langley is an indispensable work, and America has contributed 
its full share to the observation of asteroids and comets. New- 
comb, however, who is the leader since forty years, has done the 
most brilliant work, in his thorough computations of stellar paths 
and masses. We should also not forget Chandler's determination 
of magnitudes. Young's work on the sun, Newton's on meteor- 
ites, and Barnard's on comets. 

Surprisingly enough, the development of scientific physics has 
been less brilliant so far. Only in optics has really anything 
of high importance been done; but in this field there have been 
such accomplishments as Michelson's measurements of light- 
waves, Rowland's studies of concave gratings, Newcomb's meas- 
urements on the speed of light, and Langley's studies of the ultra- 
red rays. In all other fields the work is somewhat disconnected; 
although, to be sure, in the branches of electricity, acoustics, and 
heat, important discoveries have been made by Trowbridge, Wood- 
ward, Barus, Wood, Cross, Nichols, Hall, B. O. Pierce, Sabine, 
and many others. In purely technical subjects, especially those 
related to electricity, much has been done of serious scientific 
importance ; and these triumphs in technical branches are, of 
course, famous throughout the world. From the hand tool of the 
workman to locomotives and bridges, American mechanics have 
been victorious. Applied physics has yielded the modern bicycle, 
the sewing-machine, the printing-press, tool-making machinery, 
and a thousand other substitutes for muscular labour; has also 
perfected the telegraph, the incandescent lamp, the telephone and 
the phonograph, and every day brings some new laurel to the 
American inventor. But it is not to be supposed that Edison, 
Tesla, and Bell are the sole representatives of American physics. 
Quiet scientific work of the highest order is carried on in a dozen 
laboratories. Meteorology ought to be mentioned as a branch 
of physics; it has been favoured by the large field of observation 



444 "THE AMERICANS 

which America offers and has developed brilHantly under Ferrel, 
Hazen, Greely, Harrington, Mendenhall, Rotch, and others. 

It is still more true of chemistry than of physics that advance 
has been independent of the industrial application of science. 
The leading chemists have all v^orked in the interests of pure 
science; and this w^ork started at the beginning of the last century, 
v^hen Benjamin Silliman, of Yale, the editor of the first magazine 
for natural science, laid the foundations for his scientific school. 
He was followed in succeeding generations by Hare, Smith, Hunt, 
and most notably Cooke, whose studies on the periodic law and 
the atomic weight of oxygen are specially valuable. Of later men 
there are Willard Gibbs, the Nestor of chemical thermo-dynam- 
ics, who became famous by his theory of the phase rule, and 
Wolcott Gibbs through his studies on complex acids. Crafts is 
known for his researches into organic compounds, and Mallet 
by classical investigations into the atomic weight of aluminum. 
Other valuable contributions have been Hillebrand's analysis of 
minerals, Stieglitz's organic syntheses, Noyes's studies on ions, the 
work of Clark and Richards on atomic weights, Gooch's technical 
discoveries. Hill's synthetic production of benzol compounds, 
Warren's work with mineral oils, Baskerville's study of thorium, 
not to mention the highly prized text-books of Ira Remsen, the dis- 
coverer of saccharin. Among the physiological and agricultural 
chemists, the best known are Chittenden, Pfaff, Atwater, and Hil- 
gard. The pioneer of physical chemistry is Richards, of Harvard, 
probably the only American professor so far who has been called 
to the position of a full professor at a German university. He 
remained in America, although invited to Gottingen. Bancroft 
and Noyes are at work on the same branch of chemistry. 

The work in chemistry is allied in many ways to mineralogy, 
petrography, and geology. Oddly enough, mineralogy has centred 
distinctly at one place — Yale University. The elder Dana used 
to work there, whose "System of Mineralogy" first appeared in 
1837, and while frequently revised has remained for half a cen- 
tury the standard book in any language; Dana's chemical classi- 
fication of minerals has also found general acceptance. His son, 
the crystallographer, worked here, as also Brush and Penfield, 
who has investigated more kinds of stone than any other living 
man. Beside these well-known leaders, there are such men as 



SCIENCE 445 

Lawrence Smith, Cooke, Gerth, Shepard, and WolfF. The ad- 
vances in geology have been still more brilliant, since nature made 
America an incomparable field of study. Hall had already made 
an early beginning here, and Dana and Whitney, Hayden and 
King, Pov^ell and Gilbert, Davis, Shaler, and Branner have con- 
tinued the v^ork. Remains of the Glacial Epoch and mountain 
formation have been the favourite topics. And the investigation 
v^hich has frequently been connected with practical mining in- 
terests is among the most important, and in Europe the most 
highly regarded of American scientific achievements. 

Closely related to the geological are the geographical studies. 
The Government Bureau of Survey figures prominently here, 
by reason of its magnificent equipment. Most famous are the 
coast surveys of Pache and Mendenhall, and the land surveys 
of Rogers, Whitney, and Gannet. The hydrographic investiga- 
tions of Maury have perhaps had more influence on geography, 
and his physical geography of the ocean has opened up new lines 
of inquiry; Guyot has done most to spread the interests of geog- 
raphy. Americans have always been greatly interested in expedi- 
tions to dangerous lands, wherefore many Americans have been 
pioneers, missionaries, and scientific travellers. In this spirit 
Lewis and Clark explored the Northwest, Wilkes crossed the 
Pacific Ocean, Perry went to Japan, and Stanley to Africa; others 
have travelled to South America, and many expeditions have been 
started for the North Pole since the first expedition of Kane in 
1853. Palaeontology has been well represented in America, and 
has contributed a good deal to the advance in geology. Hall com- 
menced the work with studies on invertebrate fossils; then came 
Hyatt, who studied fossil cephalopods, Scudder fossil insects, 
Beecher brachiopods; and then Leidy, Cope, Osborne, and above 
all, the great scientist, Marsh — all of whom have studied fossil 
vertebrates. 

Almost every one of these men was at the same time a systematic 
zoologist. Especially in former days, many young men devoted 
themselves to systematic zoology under the leadership of Audubon, 
whose pioneer work on "The Birds of America" appeared in 
1827; then later of Say, the first investigator of butterflies and 
mussels; and still later of Louis Agassiz, the great student of 
jelly-fish, hydroids and polyps, whose son, Alexander Agassiz, has 



446 THE AMERICANS 

carried on the famous studies of coral islands. Besides these men 
have laboured LeConte, Gill, Packard, and Verrill in the province 
of invertebrates; Baird, Ridgeway, Huntington, Allen, Meriam, 
and Jordan in the field of vertebrates. At the present time in- 
terest in America as well as in Europe is turning toward histology 
and embryology. Here, too, the two Agassizes have taken the 
lead, the senior Agassiz with his studies on turtles, the younger 
Agassiz in studies on starfishes. Next to theirs come the admi- 
rable works of Wyman, Whitman, Brooks, Minot, Mark, and Wil- 
son, and the investigations of Davenport on the subject of varia- 
tion. The phenomenon of life has been studied now by zoologists 
and again by biologists and physiologists. Here belong the re- 
searches into the conscious life of lower animals carried on by 
Lee and Parker, and the excellent investigations of the German- 
American Jacques Loeb, of California, who has placed the trop- 
isms of animals and the processes of fertilization in a wholly 
new light. Of his colleagues in physiology, the best known are 
Bowditch, Howell, Porter, and Meltzer. 

The highest organism which the natural scientist can study 
is man, taken not historically, but anthropologically. The Ameri- 
can has been forced to turn to anthropology and to ethnology, 
since circumstances have put at his hand some hundred types of 
Indians, with the most diverse languages and customs, and since, 
moreover, peoples have streamed from every part of the world to 
this country; millions of African negroes are here, the ground is 
covered with the remains of former Indian life, and the strange 
civilizations of Central America have left their remains near 
by. The Ethnological Bureau at Washington and the Peabody 
Museum at Harvard have instituted many expeditions and in- 
vestigations. In recent times the works of Morgan, Hale, 
Brinton, Powell, Dall, Putnam, McGee, and Boas have opened 
new perspectives, especially on the subject of the American 
Indian. 

The American flora has contributed no less new material to 
science than the American fauna. European botanists had com- 
menced the work with tours of observation, when in the middle 
of the last century Asa Gray began his admirable life-work. He 
was in the closest sympathy with European botanists, and pub- 
lished in all more than four hundred papers on the classification 



SCIENCE i47 

and systematic study of the profuse material. Gray died in 1888, 
undoubtedly the greatest botanist that America has produced. 
His labours have been supplemented by his teacher, Torrey; by 
Chapman, who worked up the southeastern part of the country; 
by scientific travellers, such as Wright and Watson; by Engelmann, 
who studied cacti; Bebb, who studied the fields; by Coulter, the 
expert on the plants of the Rocky Mountains; by Bailey and many 
others. This great work is more or less pervaded by the ideas of 
Gray; but in the last twenty years it has branched off in several 
directions under a number of leaders. Farlow has reached out 
into cryptogamic botany, Goodale into plant physiology, and 
Sargent into dendrology. There has been, moreover, consider- 
able specialization and subdivision of labour in the botanical gar- 
dens of New York, Boston, and St. Louis, and the herbaria and 
botanical institutes of various universities and of the agricultural 
experiment stations. These institutions put forth publications 
under the editorship of such able botanists as Robinson, Trelease, 
Fernald, Smith, and True; and these works are not excelled by 
those of any other country. 

We have had, perhaps, too much of mere names; and yet these 
have been only examples, calculated to show the strength and the 
weakness of the scientific development of America. We have 
sought specially to keep within the limits of the "philosophical 
faculties." It would be interesting to go into the subjects of 
theology, law and medicine, and of technology in a similar way; 
but it would lead too far. Yet whether the unprejudiced observer 
considers such disciplines as we have described, or whether he 
looks out into neighbouring academic fields, he will find the same 
flourishing condition of things — ^a bold, healthy, and intelligent 
progress, with a complete understanding of the true aim of science, 
with tireless industry, able organization, and optimistic energy. 

Of course, the actual achievements are very uneven; they are, in 
some directions, superior to those of England and France — in a 
few directions even to those of Germany, but in others far inferior to 
German attainments. We have seen that the conditions a short time 
ago were unfortunate for science, and that only recently have they 
given way to more favourable factors. Most people see such 
favourable factors first of all in the financial support offered to 
the investigator; but the chief aid for such work does not lie in 



448 THE AMERICANS 

the providing of appliances. Endowments can do no more than 
supply books, apparatus, laboratories, and collections for those 
who wish to study, but all that never makes a great scientist; the 
average level of study may be improved by material support, but 
it will never be brought above a certain level of mediocrity. For, 
after all, science depends chiefly on the personal factor; and good 
men can do everything, even on narrow means. 

The more important factor in the opulence which science now 
enjoys is an indirect one; it improves the social status of scientific 
workers, so that better human material is now attracted to the 
scientific career. As long as scientific life meant poverty and 
dependence, the only people attracted to it were men of the school- 
teaching stamp; the better men have craved something fuller and 
greater, and have wished to expend their strength in the more 
thoroughly living province of industrial and commercial life, 
where alone the great social premiums were to be found. But 
now the case is different. Science has been recognized by the 
nation; scientific and university life has become rich in significance, 
the professor is no longer a school-teacher, and the right kind of 
young scholar is stepping into the arena. Another factor is work- 
ing in the same direction. Substantial families are coming to the 
third generation, when they go over from trade to art and science. 
The sons of the best people with great vitality and great person- 
ality prefer now to work in the laboratory rather than in the bank. 
Each one brings Yankee intelligence and Yankee energy with 
him. This social reappraisement of science, and its effect on 
the quality of men who become productive scholars, are the best 
indication of the coming greatness of American science. 



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 

Literature 

WHAT does the American read ? In * ']bvn Uhl, " the 
apprentice in the Hamburg bookshop says to his friend: 
" If I am to tell you how to be wise and cunning, then go 
where there are no books. Do you know, if I had not had my father, 
I should have gone to America — for a fact! And it would have 
gone hard with anybody who poked a book at me." In that way 
many a man in Europe, who is long past his apprenticeship, still 
pictures to himself America: Over in America nobody bothers 
about books. And he would not credit the statement that no- 
where else are so many books read as in America. The Ameri- 
can's fondness for reading finds clearest expression in the growth 
of libraries, and in few matters of civilization is America so well 
fitted to teach the Old World a lesson. Europe has many large 
and ancient collections of books, and Germany more than all the 
rest; but they serve only one single purpose — that of scientific 
investigation; they are the laboratories of research. They are 
chiefly lodged with the great universities, and even the large mu- 
nicipal libraries are mostly used by those who need material for 
productive labours, or wish to become conversant with special 
topics. 

Exactly the same type of large library has grown up in America; 
and here, too, it is chiefly the universities whose stock of books is at 
the service of the scientific world. Besides these, there are special 
libraries belonging to learned societies, state law libraries, special 
libraries of government bureaus and of museums, and largest of 
all the Library of Congress. The collection of such scientific books 
began at the earliest colonial period, and at first under theological 
auspices. The Calvinist Church, more than any other, inclined 
to the study of books. As early as 1790 the catalogue of Harvard 



450 THE AMERICANS 

College contained 350 pages, of which 150 were taken up by theo- 
logical works. Harvard has to-day almost a million books, 
mostly in the department of literature, philology, history, philos- 
ophy, and jurisprudence. There are, moreover, in Boston the 
state library of law, with over a hundred thousand volumes ; the 
Athenaeum, with more than two hundred thousand books ; the 
large scientific library of the Institute of Technology, and many 
others. Similarly, in other large cities, the university libraries 
are the nucleus for scientific labours, and are surrounded by 
admirable special libraries, particularly in New York, Chicago, 
and Philadelphia. Then, too, the small academic towns, like 
Princeton, Ithaca, New Haven, and others, have valuable col- 
lections of books, which in special subjects are often unique. For 
many years the American university libraries have been the chief 
purchasers of the special collections left by deceased European 
professors. And it often happens, especially through the gift of 
grateful alumni, that collections of the greatest scientific value, 
which could not be duplicated, come into the possession even of 
lesser institutions. 

In many departments of investigation, Washington takes the 
lead with the large collection of the various scientific, economic, 
and technical bureaus of the government. The best known of 
these is the unique medical library of the War Department. 
Then there is the Library of Congress, with many more than 
a million volumes, which to-day has an official right to one 
copy of every book published in the United States, and so may 
claim to be a national library. It is still not comparable to the 
many-sided and complete collection of the British Museum; the 
national library is one-sided, or at least shows striking gaps. 
Having started as the Library of Congress, it has, aside from its 
one copy of every American book and the books on natural sci- 
ence belonging to the Smithsonian Institution, few books except 
those on politics, history, political economy, and law. The lack 
of space for books, which existed until a few years ago, made it 
seem inexpedient to spend money for purposes other than the 
convenience of Congressmen. But the American people, in its 
love for books, has now erected such a building as the world had 
never before seen devoted to the storing of books. The new Con- 
gressional Library was opened in 1897, and since the stacks have 



LITERATURE 451 

still room for several million volumes, the library will soon grov^ 
to an all-round completeness like that at London. This library 
has a specially valuable collection of manuscripts and correspond- 
ences. 

All the collections of books which we have so far mentioned 
are virtually like those of Germany. But since they mostly date 
from the nineteenth century, the American libraries are more 
modern, and contain less dead weight in the way of unused folios. 
Much more important is their greatly superior accessibility. 
Their reading-rooms are more comfortable and better lighted, 
their catalogues more convenient, library hours longer, and, above 
all, books are much more easily and quickly delivered. Brooks 
Adams said recently, about the library at Washington as a place 
for work, that this building is well-nigh perfect; it is large, light, 
convenient, and well provided with attendants. In Paris and 
London, one works in dusty, forbidding, and overcrowded rooms, 
while here the reading-rooms are numerous, attractive, and com- 
fortable. In the National Library at Paris, one has to wait an 
hour for a book; in the British Museum, half an hour; and in 
Washington, five minutes. This rapid service, which makes such 
a great difference to the student, is found everywhere in America; 
and everywhere the books are housed in buildings which are 
palatial, although perhaps not so beautiful as the Washington 
Library. 

Still, all these differences are unessential; in principle the aca- 
demic libraries are alike in the New and Old Worlds. The great 
difference between Europe and America begins with the libraries 
which are not learned, but which are designed to serve popular 
education. The American public library which is not for science, 
but for education, is to the European counterpart as the Pullman 
express train to the village post-chaise. 

The scientific libraries of Boston, including that of Harvard 
University, contain nearly two million printed works; but the 
largest library of all is distinct from these. It is housed on Copley 
Square, in a renaissance palace by the side of the Art Museum, and 
opposite the most beautiful church in America. The staircase 
of yellow marble, the wonderful wall-paintings, the fascinating 
arcade on the inner court, and the sunlit halls are indeed beau- 
tiful. And in and out, from early morning till late evening, week- 



4-52 THE AMERICANS 

day and Sunday, move the people of Boston. The stream of 
men divides in the lower vestibule. Some go to the newspaper 
room, where several hundred daily newspapers, a dozen of them 
German, hang on racks. Others wander to the magazine rooms, 
where the weekly and monthly papers of the world are waiting to 
be read. Others ascend to the upper stories, where Sargent's 
famous pictures of the Prophets allure the lover of art, in order 
to look over more valuable special editions and the art magazines, 
geographical charts, and musical works. The largest stream of 
all goes to the second floor, partly into the huge quiet reading- 
room, partly into the rotunda, which contains the catalogue, partly 
into the hall containing the famous frescoes of the Holy Grail, 
where the books are given out. Here a million and a half books 
are delivered every year to be taken home and read. And no one 
has to wait; an apparatus carries the applicant's card with wonder- 
ful speed to the stacks, and the desired book is sent back in auto- 
matic cars. Little children meanwhile wander into the juvenile 
room, where they find the best books for children. And every- 
thing invites even the least patient reader to sit down quietly with 
some sort of a volume — everything is so tempting, so convenient 
and comfortable, and so surpassingly beautiful. And all this is 
free to the humblest working-man. 

And still, if the citizen of Massachusetts were to be asked of what 
feature of the public libraries he is most proud, he would probably 
not mention this magnificent palace in Boston, the capital of the 
state, but rather the 350 free public libraries scattered through 
the smaller cities and towns of this state, which is after all only 
one-third as large as Bavaria. It is these many libraries which 
do the broadest work for the people. Each little collection, wher- 
ever it is, is the centre of intellectual and moral enlightenment, 
and plants and nourishes the desire for self-perfection. Of 
course, Massachusetts has done more in this respect than any 
other part of the country — especially more than the South, which 
is backward in this respect. But there is no longer any city of 
moderate size which has not a large public library, and there is 
no state which does not encourage in every possible way the estab- 
lishment of public libraries in every small community, giving 
financial aid if it is necessary. 

Public libraries have become the favourite Christmas present 



LITERATURE 453 

of philanthropists, and while the hospitals, universities, and mu- 
seums have still no reason for complaint, the churches now find 
that superfluous millions are less apt to go to gay church windows 
than to well-chosen book collections. In the year 1900 there 
existed more than 5,383 public libraries having over a thousand 
volumes; of these 144 had more than fifty thousand, and 54 had 
more than a hundred thousand volumes. All together contained, 
according to the statistics of 1900, more than forty-four million 
volumes and more than seven million pamphlets; and the average 
growth was over 8 per cent. There are probably to-day, there- 
fore, fifteen million volumes more on the shelves. The many 
thousand libraries which have fewer than 999 books are over and 
above all this. 

The make-up of such public libraries may be seen from the 
sample catalogue gotten out by the Library Association a few 
years since, as a typical collection of five thousand books. This 
catalogue which, with the exception of the most important foreign 
classics, contains only books in English, including, however, many 
translations, contains 227 general reference books, 756 books on 
history, 635 on biography, 413 on travel, 355 on natural science, 
694 in belles-lettres, 809 novels, 225 on art, 220 on religion, 424 
on social science, 268 on technical subjects, etc. The cost of 
this sample collection is ^12,000. The proportions between the 
several divisions are about the same in larger collections. In 
smaller collections, belles-lettres have a somewhat greater share. 
The general interest taken by the nation in this matter is shown 
by the fact that the first edition of twenty thousand copies of this 
sample catalogue, of six hundred pages, was soon exhausted. 

The many-sidedness of this catalogue points also to the manifold 
functions of the public library. It is meant to raise the educa- 
tional level of the people, and this can be done in three ways: 
first, interest may be stimulated along new lines ; second, 
those who wish to perfect themselves in their own subjects or in 
whatsoever special topics, may be provided with technical liter- 
ature ; and third, the general desire for literary entertainment 
may be satisfied by books of the best or at least not of the worst 
sort. The directors of libraries see their duties to lie in all three 
directions. The libraries guide the tastes and interests of the 
general public, and try to replace the ordinary servant-girl's novel 



4.54- THE AMERICANS 

with the best romances of the day and shallow literature with 
Works which are truly instructive. And no community is quite con- 
tent until its public library has become a sort of general meeting- 
place and substitute for the saloon and the club. America is the 
working-man's paradise, and attractive enough to the rich man; 
but the ordinary man of the middle classes, who in Germany 
finds his chief comfort in the Bierhalle, would find little comfort 
in America if it were not for the public library, which offers him 
a home. Thus the public library has come to be a recognized 
instrument of culture along with the public school; and in all 
American outposts the school teacher and librarian are among 
the pioneers. 

The learned library cannot do this. To be sure, the university 
library can help to spread information, and conversely the public 
library makes room for thousands of volumes on all sorts of 
scientific topics. But the emphasis is laid very differently in the 
two cases, and if it were not so neither library would best fulfil its 
purpose. The extreme quiet of the reference library and the 
bustle and stir of the public library do not go together. In the 
one direction America has followed the dignified traditions of 
Europe ; in the other, it has opened new paths and travelled on 
at a rapid pace. Every year discovers new ideas and plans, new 
schemes for equipment and the selection of books, for cataloguing, 
and for otherwise gaining in utility. When, for instance, the 
library in Providence commenced to post a complete list of books 
and writings pertaining to the subject of every lecture which was 
given in the city, it was the initiation of a great movement. The 
juvenile departments are the product of recent years, and are con- 
stantly increasing in popularity. There are even, in some cases, 
departments for blind readers. The state commissions are new, 
and so also the travelling libraries, which are carried from one 
village to another. 

The great schools for librarians are also new. The German 
librarian is mostly a scholar ; but the American believes that he 
has improved on the European library systems, not so much by his 
ample financial resources as by having broken with the academic 
custom, and having secured librarians with a special library train- 
ing. And since there are such officials Jn many thousand libraries, 
and the great institutions create a constant demand for such 



LITERATURE 455 

persons, the library schools, which offer generally a three years' 
course, have been found very successful. 

Admittedly, all this technical apparatus is expensive; the Boston 
library expends every year a quarter of a million dollars for admin- 
istrative expenses. But the American taxpayer supports this 
more gladly than any other burden, knowing that the public 
library is the best weapon against alcoholism and crime, against 
corruption and discontent, and that the democratic country can 
flourish only when the instinct of self-perfection as it exists in 
every American is thoroughly satisfied. 

The reading of the American nation is not to be estimated 
wholly by the books in public libraries, since it also includes a 
tremendous quantity of printed material that goes to the home 
of every citizen. Three hundred and forty American publishers 
place their wares every year on the market, and the part bought 
by the public libraries is a very small proportion. A successful 
novel generally reaches its third hundred thousand; of course, 
such gigantic editions are limited to novels and school-books. 
The number of annual book publications is much smaller than 
in Germany ; but it must be considered that, first, the American 
electrotype process does not lend itself to new and revised editions; 
and that small brochures are replaced in America by the magazine 
articles. On the other hand, the number of copies published 
is perhaps larger than in Germany. And then, too, among the 
upper classes, a great many German, French, and Italian books 
are purchased from Europe. 

The great feature for all classes of the population is the tremen- 
dous production of periodical literature. Statistics show that 
in the United States in the year 1903, there were published 2,300 
daily papers, more than 15,000 weeklies, 2,800 monthlies, and 200 
quarterlies — in all, 21,000 periodicals. These are more period- 
icals than are published in all Europe; in Germany alone there 
are 7,500. The tremendous significance of these figures, par- 
ticularly as compared with the European, becomes clear only 
when one considers the number of copies which these periodicals 
circulate. Not merely the newspapers of the three cities having 
over a million inhabitants, but also those of the larger provincial 
towns, reach a circulation of hundreds of thousands ; and more 
surprising still is the unparalleled circulation of the weekly and 



4s6 THE AMERICANS 

monthly papers. Huge piles of magazines, containing the most 
serious sort of essays, are sold from every news-stand in a few 
hours. And anybody who knows New England is not surprised 
at the statement which T. W. Higginson makes in his recollec- 
tions, that he came once to a small Massachusetts village of only 
twenty-four homes, nineteen of which subscribed to the Atlantic 
Monthly, a publication which is most nearly comparable to the 
Deutsche Rundschau. 

The surprisingly large sales of expensive books among rich 
families is quite as gratifying as the huge consumption of magazines 
among the middle classes. Editions de luxe are often sold entire 
at fabulous prices before the edition is out, and illustrated scien- 
tific works costing hundreds of dollars always find a ready sale. 
These are merely the symptoms of the fact that every American 
home has its book-cases proportionate to its resources, and large 
private libraries are found not merely in the homes of scholars 
and specialists. In the palaces of merchant princes, the library 
is often the handsomest room, although it is sometimes so papered 
with books that it looks as if the architect had supplied them 
along with the rugs and chandeliers. One more commonly finds 
that the library is the real living-room of the house. If one looks 
about in such treasure apartments, one soon loses the sense of 
wonder completely; rare editions and valuable curiosities are 
there brought together with the greatest care and intelligence 
into an appropriate home. There are probably very few German 
private houses with collections of books and paintings comparable, 
for instance, to that of J. Montgomery Sears in Boston. The 
whole interior is so wonderfully harmonious that even the auto- 
graph poems and letters of Goethe and Schiller seem a matter of 
course. But from the book-shelves of the millionaire to the care- 
fully selected little shelf of the poor school-ma'am, from the monu- 
mental home of the national library to the modest little library 
building of every small village, from the nervous and rapid peru- 
sal of the scholar to the slow making-out of the working-man 
who pores over his newspaper on the street corner, or of the shop- 
girl with the latest novel in the elevated train, there is everywhere 
life and activity centring around the world of print, and this 
popularity of books is growing day by day. 

By far the most of what the American reads is written by Ameri- 



LITERATURE 457 

cans. This does not mean that any important book which ap- 
pears in other parts of the world escapes him; on the contrary just 
as the American everywhere wants only the best, uses the latest 
machines and listens to the most famous musicians, so in the 
matter of literature he is observant of every new tendency in 
poetry, whether from Norway or Italy, and the great works of the 
world's literature have their thoughtful readers. There are prob- 
ably more persons who read Dante in Boston than in Berlin. 
Of German intellectual productions, the scientific books are 
most read, and if strictly scientific they are read in the original 
by the best educated Americans; the popular books are mostly 
read in translation. Of the belles-lettres, Schiller and Lessing 
are generally put aside with the school-books, while Goethe and 
Heine remain welcome; and beside them are translations of 
modern story-writers from Freytag and Spielhagen down to Suder- 
mann. French literature is more apt to be read in the original 
than German, but with increasing distaste. The moral feeling 
of the American is separated by such a chasm from the atmos- 
phere of the Parisian romance that modern French literature has 
never become so popular in America as it has in Germany. 

As a matter of course, English literature of every sort has by 
far the greatest influence; English magazines are little read or 
appreciated, while English poetry, novels, dramas, and works 
of general interest are as much read in America as in England. 
Books so unlike as the novels of Mrs. Ward, of Du Maurier, and 
of Kipling have about the same very large circulation; and all 
the standard literature of England, from Chaucer to Browning, 
forms the educational background of every American, especially 
of every American woman. In spite of all this, it remains true 
that the most of that which is read in the United States is written 
by Americans. 

How and what does the American write ? 

Europe has a ready answer, and pieces together a mental pic- 
ture of "echt amerikanische" literature out of its unfriendly prej- 
udices, mostly reminiscent of Buffalo Bill and Barnum's circus. 
It is still not forgotten how England suddenly celebrated Joaquin 
Miller's freakish and inartistic poems of the Western prairie as 
the great American achievement, and called this tasteless versifier, 
who was wholly unrecognized in his own country, the American 



458 THE AMERICANS 

Byron. He was not only unimportant, but he was not typically 
American. And of American humour the European observer has 
about as just an opinion. Nothing but ridiculous caricatures are 
considered. Mark Twain's first writings, whose sole secret was 
their wild exaggeration, were more popular in Germany than in 
America; while the truly American humour of Lowell or Holmes 
has lain unnoticed. The American is supposed to be quite desti- 
tute of any sense for form or measure, and to be in every way in- 
artistic; and if any true poet were to be granted to the New World, 
he would be expected to be noisy like Niagara. In this sense 
the real literature of America has hitherto remained un-American, 
perhaps too un-American. For the main thing which it has 
lacked has been force. There have been men like Uhland, 
Geibel, and Heyse, but there has so far been no one like Hebbel. 

There is no absolutely new note in American literature, and 
especially no one trait which is common to all American writings 
and which is not found in any European. If there is anything 
unique in American literature, it is perhaps the peculiar com- 
bination of elements long familiar. An enthusiastic American 
has said that to be American means to be both fresh and mature, 
and this is in fact a combination which is new, and which well 
characterizes the literary temperament of the country. To be 
fresh and young generally means to be immature, and to be ma- 
ture and seasoned means to have lost the enthusiasm and fresh- 
ness of youth. Of course, this is not a contradiction realized. It 
would be impossible, for instance, to be both naive and mature; 
but the American is not and never has been naive. Just as this 
nation has never had a childhood, has never originated ballads, 
epics, and popular songs, like other peoples during their naive 
beginnings, because this nation brought with it from Europe a 
finished culture; so the vigorous youthfulness in the national liter- 
ary temperament has in it nothing of naive simplicity. It is the 
enthusiasm of youth, but not the innocence of boyhood. It 
would also be impossible to be both fresh and decadent; the Ameri- 
can is mature but not over-ripe, not weakened by the sceptical 
ennui of senility. 

To be fresh means to be confident, optimistic and eager, lively, 
unspoiled, and courageous; it means to strive toward one's best 
ideals with the ardour of youth; while to be mature means to under- 



LITERATURE 459 

stand things in their historic connection, in their true proportions, 
and with a due feehng for form; to be mature means to be simple, 
and reposeful, and not breathlessly anxious over the outcome 
of things. To be sure, this optimistic feeling of strength, this 
enthusiastic self-confidence, is hardly able to seize the things 
which are finest and most subtle. It looks only into the full sun- 
light, never into the shadows with their less obvious beauties. 
There are no half-tones, no sentimental and uncertain moods; 
wonder and meditation come into the soul only with pessimism. 
And most of all, the enthusiasm of youth not only looks on but 
wants to work, to change and to make over; and so the American is 
less an artist than an insistent herald. Behind the observer stands 
always the reformer, enthusiastic to improve the world. On the 
other hand, the disillusionment of maturity should have cooled 
the passions, soothed hot inspiration, and put the breathless tragic 
muse to sleep. It avoids dramatic excitement, holds aloof, and 
looks on with quiet friendliness and sober understanding of man- 
kind. So it happens that finished art is incompatible with such an 
enthusiastic eagerness to press onward, and sensuous emotion is 
incompatible with such an idealism. And so we find in the 
American temperament a finished feeling for form, but a more 
ethical than artistic content, and we find humour without its 
favourite attendant of sentiment. Of course, the exceptions 
crowd quickly to mind to contradict the formula: had not Poe 
the demoniac inspiration; was not Hawthorne a thorough artist; 
did not Whitman violate all rules of form; and does not Henry 
James see the half-tones } And still such variations from the 
usual are due to exceptional circumstances, and every formula 
can apply only in a general way. 

Still, in these general traits, one can see the workings of great 
forces. This enthusiastic self-confidence and youthful optimism 
in literature are only another expression of American initiative, 
which has developed so powerfully in the fight with nature during 
the colonial and pioneer days, and which has made the industrial 
power of America. And, as Barrett Wendell has shown, not a 
little of this enthusiastic and spontaneous character is inherited 
from the old English stock of three hundred years ago. In 
England itself, the industrial development changed the people; 
the subjects of Queen Victoria were very little like those of 



46o THE AMERICANS 

Queen Elizabeth; the spontaneity of Shakespeare's time no longer 
suits the smug and insular John Bull. But that same English 
stock found in America conditions that were well calculated to 
arouse its spontaneity and enthusiasm. 

Then, on the other hand, the clear, composed, and formal ma- 
turity which distinguish the literary work of the new nation is 
traceable principally to the excellent influence of English liter- 
ature. The ancient culture of England spared this nation a 
period of immaturity. Then, too, there has been the intellectual 
domination of the New England States, whose Puritan spirit has 
given to literature its ethical quality, and at the same time contrib- 
uted a certain quiet superiority to the common turmoil. Through- 
out the century, and even to-day, almost all of the best literature 
originates with those who are consciously reacting against the 
vulgar taste. Just because the number of sellers and readers of 
books is so much greater than in Europe, the unliterary circles 
of readers who, as everywhere, enjoy the broadly vulgar, must by 
their numbers excite the disgust of the real friend of literature; 
and this conscious duty of opposition, which becomes a sort of mis- 
sion, sharpens the artistic consciousness, fortifies the feeling of 
form, and struggles against all that is immature. 

Undoubtedly these external conditions are as responsible for 
many of the failings of American literature as for its excellences; 
most of all for the lack of shading and twilight tones, of all that is 
dreamy, pessimistic, sentimental, and " decadent." This is a lack 
in the American life which in other important connections is doubt- 
less a great advantage. There are no old castles, no crumbling 
ruins, no picturesque customs, no church mysticism, nor wonder- 
ful symbols; there are no striking contrasts between social groups, 
no romantic vagabondage, and none of the fascinating pomp of 
monarchy. Everywhere is solid and healthy contentment, thrifty 
and well clothed, on broad streets, and under a bright sun. It is no 
accident that true poets have not described their own surroundings, 
but have taken their material so far as it has been American, as 
did Hawthorne, from the colonial times which were already a 
part of the romantic past, or out of the Indian legends, or later 
from the remote adventurous life of the West, or from the negro 
life in far Southern plantations; the daily life surrounding the 
poet was not yet suitable for poetry. And by being so cruelly 



LITERATURE 4.61 

clear and without atmosphere as not to invite poetic treatment, it 
has left the whole literature somewhat glaringly sharp, sane, and 
homely. 

Fiction stands in the centre of the characteristic literary pro- 
ductions; but also literature in the broader sense, including every- 
thing which interprets human destinies, as history and philosophy, 
or even more broadly including all the written products of the 
nation, everything reflects the essential traits of the literary tem- 
perament. In fact, the practical literature, especially the news- 
paper, reveals the American physiognomy most clearly. In better 
circles in America, it is proper to deplore the newspaper as a liter- 
ary product, and to look on it as a necessary evil; and doubtless 
most newspapers serve up a great deal that is trivial and vulgar, 
and treat it in a trivial and vulgar way. But no one is forced, 
except by his own love for the sensational, to choose his daily 
reading out of this majority. Everybody knows that there is a 
minority of earnest and admirable papers at his disposal. Apart 
from newspaper politics and apart from the admirable industrial 
organization of the newspaper — both of which we have pre- 
viously spoken of — the newspapers of the country are a literary 
product whose high merit is too often under-estimated. The 
American newspapers, and of these not merely the largest, are an 
intellectual product of well-maintained uniformity of standard. 

To be sure, the style is often light, the logic unsound, the infor- 
mation superficial; but, taken as a whole, the newspaper has unity 
and character. Thousands of loose-jointed intellects crowd into 
journalism every year — more than in any other country; but 
American journalism, like the nation as a whole, has an amazing 
power of assimilation. Just as thousands of Russians and Italians 
land every year in the rags of their wretchedness, and in a few years 
become earnest American citizens, so many land on the shores of 
American journalism who were not intended to be the teachers 
or entertainers of humanity, and who nevertheless in a few years 
are quite assimilated. The American newspapers, from Boston 
to San Francisco, are alike in style and thought; and it must be 
said, in spite of all prejudices, that the American newspaper is 
certainly literature. The American knows no difference between 
unpolitical chatter written with a literary ambition and unliterary 
comment written with a political ambition. In one sense the 



4.62 THE AMERICANS 

whole newspaper is political, while at the same time it is nothing 
but feuilleton, from the editorials, of which every large newspaper 
has three or four each day, to the small paragraphs, notes, and 
announcements with which the editorial page generally closes. 
From the Washington letter to the sporting gossip, everything 
tries in a way to have artistic merit, and everything bears the 
stamp of American literature. Nothing is pedantic. There is 
often a great lack of information and of perspective — perhaps, 
even, of conscientiousness in the examination of complaints — 
but everything is fresh, optimistic, clear and forcible, and always 
humorous between the lines. 

In the weekly papers, America achieves still more. The light, 
fresh, and direct American style there finds its most congenial field. 
The same is true of the monthly papers in a somewhat more am- 
bitious and permanent way. The leading social and political 
monthlies, like the venerable North American Review, which errs 
merely in laying too much emphasis on the names of its well- 
known contributors, and others are quite up to the best English 
reviews. The more purely literary Atlantic Monthly, which was 
founded in 1857 by a small circle of Boston friends, Lowell, 
Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Whittier, and Motley, and which 
has always attracted the best talent of the country, is most nearly 
comparable to the Revue des Deux Mondes. Every monthly 
paper specially cultivates that literary form for which America has 
shown the most pronounced talent — the essay. The magazine 
essay entirely takes the place of the German brochure, a form 
which is almost unknown in America. The brochure, depend- 
ing as it does wholly on its own merits to attract the attention of 
the public, must be in some way sensational to make up for its 
diminutive size; while an essay which is brought before the reader 
on the responsibility of a magazine needs no such motive power. 
It is one among many, and takes its due place, being only one of 
the items of interest that make up the magazine. 

While in German literary circles the problems of the day are 
mostly argued in brochures, and the essay is a miniature book 
really written for the easy instruction of a public which would not 
read long books, the American essay is half-way between. It is liv- 
ing and satirical like the German brochure, but conservative and 
instructive like the German "Abhandlung." Only when a num- 



LITERATURE 463 

ber of essays on related topics come from the same pen are they 
put together and pubhshed as a separate book. We have already 
mentioned that America is oversuppHed with such volumes of 
essays, which have almost all the same history — they were first 
lectures, then magazine articles, and now they are revised and 
published in book form. Their value is, of course, very diverse ; 
but in general, they are interesting and important, often epoch- 
making, and the form is admirable. A distinguished treatment, 
pointed humour, a rich and clear diction, uncommonly happy 
metaphors, and a careful polish are united so as to make one for- 
get the undeniable haste with which the material is gathered and 
the superficiality of the conclusions arrived at. So it happens 
that the essayists who appear in book form are much more appre- 
ciated by the reading public than their German colleagues, and 
that every year sees several hundred such volumes put on 
the market. The motto, " fresh and mature," is nowhere more 
appropriate. 

But the American remains an American, even in the apparently 
international realm of science. It is a matter of course for an 
historian to write in the personal style. Parkman, Motley, Pres- 
cott, and Fiske are very different types of historians ; and never- 
theless, they have in common the same way of approaching the 
subject and of giving to it form and life. But even in so purely 
a scientific work as William James's two-volume " Principles of 
Psychology," one finds such forcible and convincing turns of 
thought, so personal a form given to abstract facts, and such 
freshness together with such ripe mastery, as could come only 
from an American. 

Oratory may be accounted an ofF-shoot of actual literature. A 
nation of politicians must reserve an honourable place for the 
orator, and for many years thousands of factors in public life have 
contributed to develop oratory, to encourage the slightest talent 
for speaking, and to reward able speakers well. Every great 
movement in American history has been initiated by eloquent 
speakers. Before the Revolution, Adams and Otis, Quincy and 
Henry, precipitated the Revolution by their burning words. And 
no one can discuss the great movement leading up to the Civil 
War without considering the oratory of Choate, Clay, Calhoun, 
Hayne, Garrison, and Sumner ; of Wendell Phillips, the great 



464. THE AMERICANS 

popular leader, and Edward Everett, the great academician, and 
of Daniel Webster, the greatest statesman of them all. 

In the present times of peace, the orator is less important than 
the essayist, and most of the party speeches to-day have not even a 
modest place in literature. But if one follows a Presidential cam- 
paign, listens to the leading lawyers of the courts, or follows the 
parliamentary debates of university students, one knows that the 
rhetorical talent of the American has not died since those days 
of quickening, and would spring up again strong and vigorous 
if any great subject, greater than were silver coinage or the 
Philippine policy, should excite again the nation. Keenness of 
understanding, admirable sense of form in the single sentence as 
in the structure of the whole, startling comparisons, telling 
ridicule, careful management of the climax, and the tone of convic- 
tion seem to be everybody's gift. Here and there the phrase is 
hollow and thought is sacrificed to sound, but the general ten- 
dency goes toward brevity and simplicity. A most delightful 
variation of oratory is found in table eloquence; the true Ameri- 
can after-dinner speech is a finished work of art. Often, of 
course, there are ordinary speeches which simply go from one 
story to another, quite content merely to relate them well. In the 
best speeches the pointed anecdote is not lacking either, but it 
merely decorates the introduction; the speaker then approaches 
his real subject half playfully and half in earnest, very sympa- 
thetically, and seeming always to let his thoughts choose words 
for themselves. The speeches at the Capitol are sometimes better 
than those in the Reichstag ; but those at American banquets are 
not only better than the speeches at Festessen and Kommersen, 
but they are also qualitatively diff^erent — true literary works of 
art, for which the American is especially fitted by the freshness, 
humour, enthusiasm, and sense of symmetry which are naturally 
his. 

Whoever looks about among journalists, essayists, historians, 
and orators will return more than once to the subject of belles- 
lettres; and this is truer in America than elsewhere. As we have 
already seen, pure literature is strongly biased toward the practical; 
it is glad to serve great ideas, whether moral or social. Poetry 
itself is sometimes an essay or sermon. We need not think here 
of romances which merely sermonize, and are therefore artistically 



LITERATURE 465 

second-rate, such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin," or of such literary 
rubbish as Bellamy's "Utopia"; even true poets like Whittier must, 
in the history of emancipation, be classed with the political writers. 
And although the problem novel in the three-volume English form 
is not favoured in America because of its poor literary form, the 
short satirical and clean-cut society novel, which may break away 
at any moment into the essay or journalistic manner, has become 
all the more popular. Further, this being the time of America's 
industrial struggle, society has not become so intellectually aristo- 
cratic that being a poet is a life profession. The leading novelists 
have had to be active in almost all fields of literature; they have 
frequently begun as journalists, and have generally been essayists, 
editors, or professors at the same time. 

The eighteenth century was unfruitful for the New World, in 
lyric as in epic literature. The literary history discovers many 
names, but they are of men who created nothing original, and who 
cannot be compared with the great English geniuses. America 
was internally as well as externally dependent on England; and 
if one compares the utter intellectual unfruitfulness of Canada 
to-day with the feverish activity of her southern neighbour, one will 
inevitably ask whether political colonies can ever create literature. 
When freedom was first obtained by the colonies, a condition of 
new equilibrium was reached after a couple of decades of uncer- 
tainty and unrest, and then American literature woke up. Even 
then it was not free, and did not care to be free, from English 
precedents; and yet there were original personalities which came 
to the front. Washington Irving was, as Thackeray said, the first 
ambassador which the New World of literature sent to the Old. 
English influences are unmistakable in the tales of Irving, al- 
though he was a strong and original writer. His "Sketch-Book," 
published in 18 19, has remained the most popular of his books, 
and the poetic muse has never been hunted away from the shores 
of the Hudson where Rip Van Winkle passed his long slumbers. 

The American novel had still not appeared. The romances of 
Brown, laid in Pennsylvania, were highly inartistic in spite of 
their forcible presentation. Then James Fenimore Cooper dis- 
covered the untouched treasures of the infinite wilderness. His 
"Spy" appeared in 1821, and he was at once hailed as the Ameri- 
can Scott. In the next year appeared "The Pioneers," the first 



4.66 THE AMERICANS 

of his Leather-stocking Tales of wild Indian life. And after 
Cooper's thirty-two romances there followed many tales by lesser 
writers. Miss Sedgwick was the first woman to attain literary 
popularity, and her romances were the first which depicted the 
life of New England. At the same time a New England youth 
began to write verses which, by their serene beauty, were incompar- 
ably above all earlier lyric attempts of his native land. Bryant's 
first volume of poems appeared in 182 1, and therewith America 
had a literature, and England's sarcastic question, "Who ever 
reads an American book } " was not asked again. 

The movement quickly grew to its first culmination. A bril- 
liant period commenced in the thirties, when Hawthorne, Holmes, 
Emerson, Longfellow, Thoreau, Curtis, and Margaret Fuller, all 
of New England, became the luminaries of the literary New 
World. And like the prelude to a great epoch rings the song of 
the one incomparable Edgar Allan Poe, who did not fight for 
ideas like a moral New Englander, but sang simply in the love 
of song. Poe's melancholy, demoniacal, and melodious poetry 
was a marvellous fountain in the country of hard and sober work. 
And Poe was the first whose fantasy transformed the short story 
into a thing of the highest poetical form. In New England no 
one was so profoundly a poet as Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author 
of " The Scarlet Letter." His " Marble Faun," of which the scene 
is laid in Italy, may show him in his fullest maturity, but his great- 
est strength lay in the romances of Massachusetts, which in their 
emotional impressiveness and artistic finish are as beautiful as 
an autumn day in New England. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 
rhapsodical philosopher, wrote poems teeming over with thought, 
and yet true poems, while Whittier was the inspired bard of free- 
dom; and besides these there was the trio of friends, Longfellow, 
Lowell, and Holmes. Harvard professors they were, and men 
of distinguished ability, whose literary culture made them the 
proper educators of the nation. Thomas Wentworth Higginson 
is the only one of this circle now living, remaining over, as it were, 
from that golden age. He fought at first to free the slaves, and 
then he became the stout defender of the emancipation of women, 
and is to-day, as then, the master of the reflective essay. His life 
is full of " cheerful yesterdays "; his fame is sure of "confident to- 
morrows." 



LITERATURE 467 

Longfellow is, to the German, mainly the sensitive transposer of 
German poetry; his sketch-book, "Hyperion," opened up the 
German world of myth, and brought the German romance across 
the ocean. His ballads and his delightful idyll of "Evangeline" 
clothed New England life, as it were, in German sentiment; and 
even his Indian edda, "Hiawatha," sounds as if from a German 
troubadour wandering through the Indian country. Longfellow 
became the favourite poet of the American home, and American 
youth still makes its pilgrimage to the house in Cambridge where 
he once lived. Lowell was perhaps more gifted than Longfellow, 
and certainly he was the more many-sided. His art ranged from 
the profoundest pathos by which American patriotism was aroused 
in those days of danger, to the broadest and most whimsical humour 
freely expressed in dialect verses; and he also wrote the most 
finished idyllic poetry and keenly satirical and critical essays. It 
is common to exalt his humorous verses, "The Biglow Papers," 
to the highest place of typical literary productions of America; 
nevertheless, his essential quality was fine and academic. Real 
American humour undoubtedly finds its truer expression in 
Holmes. Holmes was also a lyric poet, but his greatest work 
was the set of books by the "Autocrat." His "Autocrat of 
the Breakfast Table" has that serious smile which makes world 
literature. It was the first of a long series, and at the writing he 
was a professor of anatomy, sixty-four years old. 

Then there were many lesser lights around these great ones. 
At the middle of the century Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," of which ten thousand copies were sold 
every day for many months. And romance literature in general 
began to increase. At the same time appeared the beautiful 
songs of Bayard Taylor, whose later translation of Faust has never 
been surpassed, and the scarcely less admirable lyrics of Stedman 
and Stoddard. So it happened that at the time when the Civil 
War broke out, America, although deficient in every sort of pro- 
ductive science except history, had a brilliant literature. Science 
needed, first of all, solid academic institutions, which could only 
be built patiently, stone on stone — a work which has been wit- 
nessed by the last three decades of the century. Poetry, however, 
needed only the inner voice which speaks to the susceptible heart, 
and the encouragement of the people. For science there has 



468 THE AMERICANS 

been a steady, quiet growth, parallel with the growth of the insti- 
tutions; for letters there have been changing fortunes, times of 
prosperity and times of stagnation. When the powder and smoke 
of the Civil War had blown away the happy days of literature 
were over; it began to languish, and only at the present day is it 
commencing to thrive once more. 

This does not mean that there has been no talent for three 
decades, or that the general interest in literature has flagged. 
Ambitious writers of romance like Howells, James, Crawford, and 
Cable; novelists like Aldrich, Bret Harte, and Hale, Mary Wilkins, 
and Sarah Orne Jewett; poets like Lanier and Whitman, and 
humourists like Stockton and Mark Twain, have done much excel- 
lent work, and work that is partly great, and have shown the 
way to large provinces of literary endeavour. Nevertheless, com- 
pared with the great achievements which had gone before, theirs 
is rather a time of intermission. And yet many persons are quite 
prepared to say that Howells is the greatest of all American 
authors, and his realistic analyses among the very best modern 
romances. And Howells himself pays the same tribute to Mark 
Twain's later and maturer writings. 

But there is one poet about whom only the future can really 
decide; this is Walt Whitman. His "Leaves of Grass," with 
their apparently formless verse, were greatly praised by some; by 
others felt to be barbarous and tasteless. There has been a dis- 
pute similar to that over Zarathustra of Nietzsche. And even as 
regards content. Whitman may be compared with Nietzsche, the 
radical democrat with the extreme aristocrat, for the exaggerated 
democratic exaltation of the ego leads finally to a point in 
which every single man is an absolute dictator in his own world, 
and therefore comes to feel himself unique, and proudly demands 
the right of the Uebermensch. "When they fight, I keep silent, 
go bathing, or sit marvelling at myself," says this prophet of de- 
mocracy. "In order to learn, I sat at the feet of great masters. Oh, 
that these great masters might return once more to learn of me." 
The similarity between American and German intellects could 
readily be traced further, and was, perhaps, not wholly unfitted to 
reveal a certain broad literary perspective. As we have compared 
Whitman and Nietzsche, so we might compare Bryant with Platen, 
Poe with Heine, Hawthorne with Freytag, Lowell with Uhland, 



LITERATURE 469 

Whittier with Riickert, Holmes with Keller, Howells with Fon- 
tane, Crawford with Heyse, and so on, and we should compare 
thus contemporaries of rather equal rank. But such a parallel- 
ism, of course, could not be drawn too far, since it would be easy 
to show in any such pair important traits to belie the comparison. 

In the positively bewildering literature of to-day, the novel 
and the short story strongly predominate. The Amiericans have 
always shown a special aptitude and fondness for the short story. 
Poe was the true master of that form, and the grace with which 
Aldrich has told the story of Marjorie Daw, and Davis of Van 
Bibber, the energy with which Hale has cogently depicted the 
Man Without a Country, or Bret Harte the American pioneer, 
and the intimacy with which Miss Wilkins and Miss Jewett have 
perpetuated the quieter aspects of human existence, show a true 
instinct for art. A profound appreciation, fresh vigour, and fine 
feeling for form, graceful humour and all the good qualities of 
American literature, combine to make the short story a perfect 
thing. It is not the German Novelle, but is, rather, comparable 
to the French conte. The short stories are not all of the single 
type; some are masculine and others feminine in manner. The 
finely cut story, which is short because the charm of the incidents 
would vanish if narrated in greater detail, is of the feminine type. 
And, of the masculine, is the story told in cold, sharp relief, which 
is short because it is energetic and impatient of any protracted 
waits. In both cases, everything unessential is left out. Perhaps 
the American is nowhere more himself than here; and short stories 
are produced in great numbers and are specially fostered by the 
monthly magazines. 

Of humourists there are fewer to-day than formerly. Neither 
the refined humour of Irving, Lowell, and Holmes, nor the broader 
humour of Bret Harte and Mark Twain, finds many representa- 
tives of real literary importance. There are several, it is true, 
who are delighted with Dooley's contemporary comment in the 
Irish dialect, but there is a much truer wit in the delicately satir- 
ical society novels of Henry James, and to a less degree in those 
of Grant, Herrick, Bates, and a hundred others, or in the romances 
of common life, such as Westcott's "David Harum." 

The historical romance has flourished greatly. At first the 
fantasy went to far regions, and the traditional old figures of 



4.70 THE AMERICANS 

romance were tricked out in the gayest foreign costumes. The 
most popular of all has been Wallace's "Ben Hur." The Ameri- 
cans have long since followed the road which German writers 
have taken from Ebers to Dahn and Wildenbruch, and have re- 
vived their own national past. To be sure, the tremendous edi- 
tions of these books are due rather to the desire for information 
than the love of poetry. The public likes to learn its national 
history while being entertained, since the national consciousness 
has developed so noticeably in the last decade and the social life 
of America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has doubt- 
less become thus living and real for millions of Americans. Aes- 
thetic motives predominate, nevertheless, and although books like 
Churchill's "The Crisis," Bacheller's "D'ri and I," Miss John- 
ston's "Audrey," Ford's "Janice Meredith," and others similar 
are merely books of the day, and will be replaced by others on the 
next Christmas-trees, nevertheless they are works of considerable 
artistic merit. They are forcibly constructed, dramatic, full of 
invention and delightful diction. It is undeniable that the general 
level of the American romance is to-day not inferior to that of 
Germany. 

Historical romance aims, first of all, to awaken the national 
consciousness. So, for instance, the romances of the versatile 
physician. Weir Mitchell, are first of all histories of the Revo- 
lutionary period of the whole nation, and, secondarily, histories of 
early Pennsylvania. But the story which depends on local coloui 
flourishes too. Here shows itself strongly that trait which is distin- 
guishable in American writing through the whole century, from 
Irving, Cooper, and Bryant to the present day — the love of nature. 
Almost every part of the country has found some writer to cele- 
brate its landscape and customs, not merely the curious inhabit- 
ants of the prairie and gold-fields, but the outwardly unromantic 
characters of the New England village and the Tennessee moun- 
tains, of the Southern plantations and the Western States. And 
new stories of this sort appear every day. Especially the new 
West figures prominently in literature; and the tireless ambition 
on which the city of Chicago is founded is often depicted with 
much talent. The novels of Fuller, Norris, and others are all 
extraordinarily forceful descriptions of Western life and civiliza- 
tion. The South of to-day, which shows symptoms of awaking 



LITERATURE 4.^1 

to new life, is described more from the Northern than from the 
Southern point of view. It is surprising that the mental hfe of the 
American negro has attracted so little attention, since the short 
stories of Chestnut point to unexplored treasures. 

The longer efforts are always in prose, and since the time of 
Evangeline epic verse has found almost no representative. 
Verse is almost wholly lyrical. The history of American lyric is 
contained in the large and admirable collections of Stedman, 
Onderdonk, and others; and it is the history of, perhaps, the most 
complete achievement of American literature. One who knows the 
American only in the usual caricature, and does not know what 
an idealist the Yankee is, would be surprised to learn that the 
lyric poem has become his favourite field. The romantic novel, 
which appeals to the masses, may have, perhaps, a commercial 
motive, while the book of verse is an entirely disinterested produc- 
tion. The lyric, in its fresh, intense, and finished way, reveals the 
inner being of American literature, and surprisingly much lyric 
verse is being written to-day. Even political newspapers, like 
the Boston Transcript, publish every day some lyric poem; and 
although here as everywhere many volumes of indifferent verse 
see the light of day, still the feeling for form is so general that one 
finds very seldom anything wholly bad and very often bits of 
deep significance and beauty. Here, too, the best-known things 
are not the most admirable. We hear too much of Markham's 
"The Man With the Hoe," and too little of Santayana's sonnets 
or of Josephine Preston Peabody. Here, too, local colour is happily 
in evidence — as, for instance, in the well-known verses of Riley. 
The Western poet goes a different road from the Eastern. The 
South has never again sent a messenger so full of melodies as 
Sidney Lanier. 

There is a strong lyric tendency also in the dramatic compo- 
sitions of the day. The true drama has always been more neg- 
lected than any other branch of art, and if it is true that the 
Americans have preserved the temperament and point of view of 
EHzabethan England, it is high time for some American Shake- 
speare to step forth. Until now, extremely few plays of real liter- 
ary worth have been written between the Atlantic and the Pacific 
Oceans. Dramatists there have been always, and the stage is now 
more than ever supplied by native talent; but literature is too little 



4.J2 THE AMERICANS 

considered here. The rural dramas having the local colour of 
Virginia and New England are generally better than the society 
pieces: and the very popular dramatizations of novels are stirring, 
but utterly cheap. On the other hand, the American has often 
applied the lyric gift in dramatic verse, and in dramas of philo- 
sophic significance such as Santayana's admirable "Lucifer" 
or Moody's "Masque of Judgment." The stunted growth of 
American dramatic writing is closely connected with the history 
of the American stage, a subject which may lead us from litera- 
ture to the sister arts. 



CHAPTER NINETEEN 
Art 

THE history of the theatre leads us once more back to 
Puritan New England. Every one knows that the Pu- 
ritan regarded the theatre as the very temple of vice, and 
the former association of the theatre and the bar-room — a 
tradition that came from England — naturally failed to make 
public opinion more favourable. In the year 1750 theatrical pro- 
ductions were entirely forbidden in Boston. One theatre was 
built in 1794, and a few others later, but the public feeling against 
demoralizing influences of the stage so grew that one theatre after 
another was turned from its profane uses and made over into a 
lecture hall or something of the sort. In 1839 it was publicly 
declared that Boston should never again have a theatre. Never- 
theless by 1870, it had five theatres, and to-day it has fifteen. 
Other cities have always been more liberal toward the theatre, 
and in the city of New York, since 1733, ninety-five theatres have 
been built, of which more than thirty are still standing to-day 
and in active operation. Thus the Puritan spirit seems long 
since to have disappeared, and the backwardness of the drama 
seems not to be connected with the religious past of the country. 
But this is not the case. 

Let us survey the situation. There is certainly no lack of 
theatres, for almost every town has its "opera house," and the 
large cities have really too many. Nor is there any lack of his- 
trionic talent; for, although the great Shakespearian actor, Edwin 
Booth, has no worthy successor, we have still actors who are 
greatly applauded and loved— Mansfield, Sothern, Jefferson, Drew, 
and Gillette; Maude Adams, Mrs. Fiske, Blanche Bates, Hen- 
rietta Crosman, Julia Arthur, Julia Marlowe, Ada Rehan, Nance 
O'Neill, and many others who are certainly sincere artists; and the 



474- "THE AMERICANS 

most brilliant actors of Europe, Irving and Tree, Duse, Bern- 
hardt, Sorma, and Campbell come almost every year to play in 
this country. The American's natural versatility gives him a 
great advantage for the theatrical career; and so it is no accident 
that amateur theatricals are nowhere else so popular, especially 
among student men and women. The equipments of the stage, 
moreover, leave very little to be desired, and the settings some- 
times surpass anything which can be seen in Europe; one often 
sees marvellous effects and most convincmg illusions. And these, 
with the American good humour, verve, and self-assurance, and 
the beauty of American women, bring many a graceful comedy 
and light opera to a really artistic performance. The great public, 
too, is quite content, and fills the theatres to overflowing. It seems 
almost unjust to criticise unfavourably the country's theatres. 

But the general public is not the only nor even the most im- 
portant factor; the discriminating public is not satisfied. Artis- 
tic productions of the more serious sort are drowned out by a 
great tide of worthless entertainments; and however amusing or 
diverting the comedies, farces, rural pieces, operettas, melodra- 
mas, and dramatized novels may be, they are thoroughly un- 
worthy of a people that is so ceaselessly striving for cultivation 
and self-perfection. Such pieces should not have the assur- 
ance to invade the territory of true art. And, although the lack 
of good plays is less noticeable, if one looks at the announcements 
of what is to be given in New York on any single evening, it is 
tremendously borne home on one by the bad practice of repeat- 
ing the plays night after night for many weeks, so that a person 
who wants to see real art has soon seen every production which is 
worth while. In this respect New York is distinctly behind Paris, 
Berlin, or Vienna, although about on a level with London; and in 
the other large cities of America the situation is rather worse. 
Everywhere the stage caters to the vulgar taste, and for one Ham- 
let there are ten Geishas. 

It cannot be otherwise, since the theatre is entirely a business 
matter with the managers. Sometimes there is an artist like the 
late Daly, who is ready to conduct a theatre from the truly artistic 
point of view, and who oflFers admirable performances; but this 
is an expensive luxury, and there are few who will aff^ord it. It is 
a question of making money, and therefore of offering humor- 



ART 475 

ous or sentimental pieces which fill the theatre. There is another 
fact of which the European hardly knows; it is cheaper to engage a 
company to play a single piece for a whole year with mechanical 
regularity than to hire actors to give the study necessary to a 
diversified repertoire. After many repetitions, even mediocre actors 
can attain a certain skill, while in repertoire only good actors 
are found at all satisfactory, and the average will not be tolerated 
by the pampered public. Then, too, the accessories are much 
cheaper for a single piece. 

Now, in a town of moderate size, one piece cannot be repeated 
many nights, so that the companies have to travel about. The 
best companies stay not less than a week, and if the town is large 
enough, they stay from four to six weeks. These companies are 
known by the name of the piece which they are presenting, or 
by the name of the leading actor, the "star." The theatre in 
itself is a mere tenantless shell. In early fall the whole list of 
companies which are to people its stage through the next thirty 
weeks is arranged. In this way, it is true that the small city is 
able to see the best actors and the newest pieces. Yet one sees 
how sterile this principle is by considering some of the extreme 
cases. Jefferson has played his Rip Van Winkle and almost 
nothing else for thirty years; and the young people of Chicago, 
Philadelphia, and Boston would be very unhappy if he were not 
to come in this role for a couple of weeks every winter. And he 
has thus become several times a millionaire. 

But the business spirit has not stopped with this. The hundreds 
of companies compete with one another, so that very naturally 
a theatrical trust has been formed. The syndicate of Klaw, 
Erlanger & Frohman was organized in 1896 with thirty-seven 
leading theatres in large cities, all pledged to present none but 
companies belonging to the syndicate, while, in return, the syndi- 
cate agreed to keep the theatres busy every week in the season. 
The favourite actors and the favourite companies were secured, 
and the independent actors who resisted the tyranny found that in' 
most of the large cities only second-rate theatres were open to 
them. One after another had to give in, and now the great trust 
under the command of Frohman has virtually the whole the- 
atrical business of the country in its hands. The trust operates 
shrewdly and squarely; it knows its public, offers variety, follows 



4.7(> THE AMERICANS 

the fashions, gives the great mimes their favourite roles, pays them 
and the theatre ow^ners well, relieves the actors from the struggle 
for promotion, and vastly amuses the public. It is impossible to 
resist this situation, w^hich is so adverse to art. 

All are agreed that there is only one v^ay to better matters. 
Permanent companies must be organized, in the large cities at 
first, to play in repertoire. And these must be subsidized, so as 
not to be dependent for their support on the taste of the general 
public. Then and then only will the dramatic art be able to 
thrive, or the theatre become an educational institution, and so 
slowly cultivate a better demand, which in the end will come to 
make even the most eclectic theatre self-supporting. So it has 
always been on the European Continent; princes and municipali- 
ties have rivalled with one another to raise the level of dramatic 
art above what it would have to be if financially dependent 
solely on the box-office. In the United States there is certainly 
no lack of means or good will to encourage such an educational 
institution. Untold millions go to libraries, museums, and uni- 
versities, and we may well ask why the slightest attempt has not 
been made to provide, by gift or from the public treasury, for a 
temple to the drama. 

It is just here that the old Puritan prejudice is still felt to-day. 
The theatre is no longer under the ban of the law, but no step can 
be taken toward a subvention of the theatre. Most taxpayers 
in America would look with disfavour on any project to support a 
theatre from public funds. Why a theatre more than a hotel or 
restaurant .f' The theatre remains a place of frivolous amusement, 
and for that reason no millionaires have so far endowed a 
theatre. Men like Carnegie know too well that the general 
mass of people would blame them if they were to give their 
millions to the theatre, as long as a single town was still wishing 
for its library or its college. 

The history of music in America has shown what can be at- 
tained by endowment — how the public demand can be educated 
so that even the very best art will finally be self-supporting. The 
development of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which is still 
the best musical organization in the country, is thoroughly 
typical. It was realized that symphony concerts, like the best 
given in Germany, would not be self-supporting, in view of the 



ART ^77 

deficient musical education of the country. In 1880 Boston had 
two symphony orchestras, but both were of Httle account. They 
were composed of over-busied musicians, who could not spare the 
time needed for study and rehearsals. Then one of the most 
Hberal and appreciative men of the country, Henry Lee Higgin- 
son, came forward and engaged the best musicians whom he could 
find, to give all their time and energy to an orchestra; and he 
himself guaranteed the expenses. During the first few years 
he paid out a fortune annually, but year by year the sum grew 
less, and to-day Boston so thoroughly enjoys its twenty-four 
symphony concerts, which are not surpassed by those of any 
European orchestra, that the large music-hall is too small to hold 
those who wish to attend. This example has been imitated, and 
now New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities have 
excellent and permanent orchestras. 

Likewise various cities, but especially New York, enjoy a few 
weeks of German, French, and Italian opera which is equal to the 
best opera in Europe, by a company that brings together the 
best singers of Europe and America. In the case of opera the love 
of music has prevailed over the prejudice against the theatre. 
Extraordinarily high subscriptions for the boxes, and a reduced 
rental of the Metropolitan Opera House, which was erected by 
patrons of art, have given brilliant support to the undertaking. 
Without going into questions of principle, an impartial friend 
of music must admit that even the performances of Parsifal were 
artistically not inferior to those of Bayreuth, and the audience 
was quite as much in sympathy with the great masterpiece as are 
the assemblages of tourists at Bayreuth. The artistic education 
proceeding from these larger centres is felt through the entire 
country, and there is a growing desire for less ambitious but per- 
manent opera companies. 

The symphony and the opera are not the only evidences of the 
serious love of music in America. Every large city has its con- 
servatory and its surplus of trained music teachers, and almost 
every city has societies which give oratorios, and innumerable 
singing clubs, chamber concerts, and regular musical festivals. 
Even the concerts by other soloists than that fashionable favourite 
of American ladies, Paderewski, are well attended. And these 
are not new movements; opera was given in New York as early 



4.78 THE AMERICANS 

as 1750, and the English opera of the eighteenth century was 
followed in 1825 ^7 Italian opera. Also Baltimore, Philadelphia, 
and New Orleans early developed a love for music. 

Boston has been the great centre for oratorio. The Handel 
and Haydn Society dates from 18 10, and in 1820 a great many 
concerts were given all through the East, even in small towns. And 
the influence of the musical Germans was strongly felt by the 
middle of the century. The Germania Orchestra of Boston was 
founded in 1848, and now all the Western cities where German 
influences are strong, such as Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Chicago, 
and St. Louis, are centres of music, with many male choruses 
and much private cultivation of music in the home. 

The churches, moreover, are a considerable support to music. 
The Puritan spirit disliked secular music no less than the theatre; 
but the popular hymns were always associated with the service 
of God, and so the love for music grew and its cultivation spread. 
Progress was made from the simplest melodies to fugue arrange- 
ments; organs and stringed instruments were introduced; the 
youth was educated in music, and finally in the last century 
church worship was made more attractive by having the best 
music obtainable. And thus, through the whole country, chorus 
and solo singing and instrumental skill have been everywhere 
favoured by the popular religious instinct. 

So much for the performance of music. Musical composition 
has not reached nearly such a high point. It is sufllicient to look 
over the programmes of recent years. Wagner leads among 
operatic composers, then follow Verdi, Gounod, and Mozart; 
Beethoven is the sovereign of the concert-hall, and The Messiah 
and The Creation are the most popular oratorios. Sometimes a 
suspicion has been expressed that American composers must have 
been systematically suppressed by the leading German conductors 
like Damrosch, Seidl, Gericke, Thomas, and Paur. But this 
is not remotely true. The American public is much more to be 
blamed; for, although so patriotic in every other matter, it looks 
on every native musical composition with distrust, and will hardly 
accept even the American singer or player until he has first won 
his laurels in Europe. 

Still, there has been some composition in America. There were 
religious composers in the eighteenth century, and when every- 



ART 479 

thing English was put away at the time of the Revolution, the 
colonists replaced the psalm-tunes which they had brought over 
with original airs. Billings and his school were especially popular, 
although there was an early reaction against what he was pleased 
to call fugues. The nineteenth century brought forth little more 
than band-master music, with no sign of inspiration in real 
orchestral or operatic music. Only lately there have stepped 
into the field such eminent composers as MacDowell, Paine, 
Chadwick, Strong, Beech, Buck, Parker, and Foot. Paine's 
opera of "Azara," Chadwick's overtures, and MacDowell's inter- 
esting compositions show how American music will develop. 

More popular was a modest branch of musical composition, 
the song in the style of folk-songs. America has no actual folk- 
songs. The average European imagines "Yankee Doodle" to 
be the real American song, anonymous and dreadful as it is, 
and in diplomatic circles the antiquated and bombastic "Hail 
Columbia" is conceived to be the official hymn of America. 
The Americans themselves recognize neither of these airs. The 
"Star Spangled Banner" is the only song which can be called 
national; it was written in i8i4to an old and probably English 
melody. The Civil War left certain other songs which stir the 
breast of every patriotic American. 

On the other hand, folk-songs have developed in only one part of 
the country — on the Southern plantations — and with a very local 
colouring. The negro slaves sang these songs first, although it is 
unlikely that they are really African songs. They seem to be Irish 
and Scotch ballads, which the negroes heard on the Mississippi 
steamboats. Baptist and Methodist psalm-tunes and French 
melodies were also caught up by the musical negroes and modi- 
fied to their peculiar melody and rhythm. A remarkable sadness 
pervades all these Southern airs. 

Many song composers have imitated this most unique musical 
product of the country. In the middle of the century Stephen 
Foster rose to rapid popularity with his "Old Folks at Home," 
which became the popular song, rivalled only by "Home Sweet 
Home," which was taken from the text of an American opera, but 
of which the melody is said to have originated in Sicily. There 
are to-day all sorts of composers, some in the sentimental style 
and others in the light opera vein, whose street tunes are instantly 



4-80 THE AMERICANS 

sung, whistled and played on hurdy-gurdies from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, and, worst of all, stridently rendered by the graphophones, 
with megaphone attachments, on verandahs in summer. There 
are composers of church hymns, of marches h la Sousa, and 
writers of piano pieces by the wholesale. All serious musicians 
agree that the American, unlike ,the Englishman, is decidedly 
musically inclined, but he is the incontestable master of only a 
very modest musical art — he can whistle as nobody else. 

Unlike American music, American paintings are no longer 
strange to Europe. In the art division of the last Paris Expo- 
sition Americans took their share of the honours, and they are 
highly appreciated at most of the Berlin and Munich picture 
shows. Sargent and Whistler are the best known. Sargent, 
as the painter of elegant ladies, prosperous men, and interesting 
children, has undoubtedly the surest and most refined gift with his 
brush of any son of the New World. When, a few years ago, a 
large exhibition of his works was brought together in Boston, one 
felt on standing before that gathering of ultra-polite and almost 
living humanity, that in him the elegant world has found its most 
brilliant, though perhaps not its most flattering, transcriber. 
Whistler is doubtless the greater, the real sovereign. This most 
nervous of all artists has reproduced his human victims with 
positively uncanny perspicacity. Like Henry James, the novelist, 
he fathoms each human riddle, and expresses it intangibly, 
mysteriously. Everything is mood and suggestion, the dull and 
heavy is volatilized, the whole is a sceptical rendering in rich 
twilight tones. 

America is proud of both artists, and still one may doubt 
whether the art of the New World would be justly represented 
if it sent across the ocean only these two pampered and 
somewhat whimsical artists. Firstly, in spite of much brilliant 
other work, they are both best known as portraitists, while it be- 
comes plainer every day that landscape painting is the most 
typical American means of expression. The profound feeling 
for nature, which pervades American poetry and reflects the na- 
tional life and struggle therewith, brings the American to study 
landscape. Many persons think even that if American artists 
were to send ever so many easel pictures across the ocean, the 
artistic public of Europe would still have no adequate judgment 



ART 481 

of American painting, because the best talent is busied with the 
larger pieces intended for wall decoration. The great number 
of monumental buildings, with their large wall surfaces and the 
desire for ambitious creations, attract the American to-day to wall- 
painting. And they try to strengthen the national character 
of this tendency by a democratic argument. The easel picture, 
it is said, is a luxury designed for the house of the wealthy and is, 
therefore, decadent, while the art of a nation which is working 
out a democracy must pertain to the people; and therefore just 
as early art adorned the temples and churches, this art must 
adorn the walls of public buildings, libraries, judicial chambers, 
legislatures, theatres, railway stations and city halls. And the 
more this comes to be the case, the less correct it is to judge 
the pinctile efforts of the time by the fram.ed pictures that come 
into the exhibitions. Moreover, many of the more successful 
painters do not take the trouble to send any of their works across 
the ocean. 

Sargent and Whistler also — and this is more important — 
speak a language which is not American, while the country has 
now developed its own grammar of painting, and the most 
representative artists are seldom seen in Europe. In painting, 
as in so many other branches, the United States has developed 
from the provincial to the cosmopolitan and from the cosmo- 
politan to the national, and is just now taking this last step. It 
is very characteristic that the untutored provincial has grown 
into the national only by passing through a cosmopolitan stage. 
The faltering powers of the beginner do not achieve a self-con- 
scious expression of national individuality until they have first 
industriously and systematically imitated foreign methods, and so 
attained a complete mastery of the medium of expression. 

At first the country, whose poor population was not able to pay 
much attention to pictures, turned entirely to England. West 
and Copley are the only pre-Revolutionary Americans whose 
pictures possess any value. The portraits of their predecessors 
— as, for instance, those in Memorial Hall at Harvard — are stiff, 
hard, and expressionless. Then came Gilbert Stuart at the end 
of the eighteenth century, whose portraits of George and Martha 
Washington are famous, and who showed himself an artistic genius 
and quite the equal of the great English portraitists. John 



4B2 THE AMERICANS 

Trumbull, an officer in the Revolutionary Army, who lived at the 
same time, was still more important for the national history by 
his war pictures, the best of which were considerably above 
contemporary productions. The historical wall-paintings which 
he made in 18 17, for the Capitol at Washington, are in his later 
and inferior manner. They seem to-day, like everything which 
was done in the early part of the century to decorate the 
Capitol, hackneyed and tiresome. And if one goes from the 
Capitol to the Congressional Library, which shows the condition 
of art at the end of the nineteenth century, one feels how far the 
public taste of Trumbull's time was from appreciating true art. 
Portraiture was the only art which attained tolerable excellence, 
where, besides Stuart, there were Peale, Wright, and Savage. 
Then came the day of the "American Titian," Allston, whose 
Biblical pictures were greatly praised for their brilliant colouring. 

Hitherto artists had gone to England to study or, indeed, 
sometimes to Italy. In the second third of the century they went 
to Diisseldorf; they painted American landscapes, American 
popular life, and historical pictures of American heroes, all in 
German fashion. They delighted in genre studies in the Dussel- 
dorf manner, and painted the Hudson River all bathed in Ger- 
man moonlight. While the popular school was still painting the 
world in blackish brown, the artistic secession began at about 
the time of the Civil War. Then artists began to go to Paris and 
Munich, and American painting developed more freely. It was 
a time of earnest, profound, and independent study such as had 
so far never been. The artist learned to draw, learned to see 
values, and, in the end, to be natural. The number of artists 
now began to increase, and to-day Americans produce thousands 
of pictures each year, and one who sees the European exhibitions 
in summer and the American in winter does not feel that the 
latter are on a much lower level. 

Since Allston's time the leaders in landscape have been Cole, 
Bierstadt, Kensett, and Gifford; in genre, Leslie, Woodville, 
and particularly Mount; in historical painting, Lentze and White; 
and in portraiture, Inman and Elliott. The first who preached 
the new doctrine of individuality and colour was Hunt, and in the 
early seventies the new school just graduated from Paris and 
Munich was bravely at work. There are many well-known 



ART 4.83 

names In the last thirty years, and it is a matter rather of indi- 
vidual choice what pictures one prefers of all the large number. 
Yet no one would omit George Inness from the list, since he has 
seen American landscapes more individually than any one else. 
Besides his pictures every one knows the marines of Winslow 
Homer, the street scenes of Childe Hassam, the heads of Eaton, 
the autumn forests of Enneking, the apple trees in spring-time of 
Appleton Brown, the delicate landscapes of Weir and Tryon, 
the wall pictures of Abbey, Cox, and Low, Gaugengigl's little 
figure paintings, Vedder's ambitious symbolism, the brilliant 
portraits of Cecilia Beaux and Chase, the women's heads of 
Tarbell, the ideal figures of Abbot Thayer, and the works of a 
hundred other American artists, not to mention those who are 
really more familiar in London, Paris, and Munich than in 
America itself. 

Besides the oil pictures, there are excellent water-colours, pas- 
telles, and etchings; and, perhaps most characteristic of all, there 
Is the stained glass of La Farge, Lathrop, the late Mrs. Whitman, 
Goodhue, and others. The workers in pen-and-ink are highly 
accomplished, of whom the best known is Gibson, whose Ameri- 
can women are not only artistic, but have been socially in- 
fluential on American ideals and manners. His sketches for 
Life have been themselves models for real life. Nor should we 
forget Pennell, the master of atmosphere in pen-and-ink. 

Sculpture has developed more slowly. It presupposes a higher 
understanding of art than does painting; and, besides that, the 
prudishness of the Puritan has affected it adversely. When 
John Brazee, the first American amateur sculptor, in the early 
part of the nineteenth century, asked advice of the president of 
the New York Academy of Arts, he was told that he would better 
wait a hundred years before practicing sculpture in America. 
The speech admirably showed the general lack of interest in 
plastic art. But the impetuous pressure toward self-perfection 
existing in the nation shortened the century into decades; people 
began to journey through Italy. The pioneers of sculpture were 
Greenough, Powers, Crawford, and Palmer, and their statues 
are still valued for their historical interest. The theatrical genre 
groups of John Rogers became very popular; and Randolph 
Rogers, who created the Columbus bronze doors of the Capitol, 



484 THE AMERICANS 

was really an artist. Then came Storey, Ball, Rinehart, Hosmer, 
Mead, and many others with works of greater maturity. 
Squares and public buildings were filled with monuments and 
busts which, to be sure, were generally more interesting politically 
than artistically, and which to-day wait patiently for a charitable 
earthquake. And yet they show how the taste for plastic art 
has slowly worked upward. 

More recent movements, which are connected with the names 
of Ward, Warner, Partridge, French, MacMonnies, and St. 
Gaudens, have already left many beautiful examples of sculpture. 
Cities are jealously watchful now that only real works of art shall 
be erected, and that monuments which are to be seen by millions 
of people shall be really characteristic examples of good art. 
More than anything else, sculpture has at length come into a 
closer sympathy with architecture than perhaps it has in any 
other country. The admirable sculptural decorations of the 
Chicago World's Fair, the effective Dewey Triumphal Arch 
and the permanent plastic decorations of the Congressional 
Library, the more restrained and distinguished decorations of the 
Court of Appeals in New York City, and of many similar buildings 
show clearly that American sculpture has ended its period of 
immaturity. Such a work as St. Gaudens's Shaw Memorial in 
Boston is among the most beautiful examples of modern sculp- 
ture; and it is thoroughly American, not only because the negro 
regiment marches behind the mounted colonel, but because the 
American subject is handled in the American spirit. These men 
are depicted with striking vigour, and the young hero riding to his 
death is conceived with Puritan sobriety. Vigorous and mature 
is the American, in plastic art as well as in poetry. 

The development of architecture has been a very different 
one. A people must be housed, and cannot stay out of doors 
until it has learned what is beautiful in architecture People 
could wait for poetry, music, and painting while they were busy 
in keeping off the Indians and felling the forests; but they had to 
have houses at once. And since at that time they had no independ- 
ent interests in art, they imitated forms with which they had been 
familiar, and everywhere perpetuated the architectural ideas of 
their mother country. But the builder is at a disadvantage 
beside the painter, the singer, and the poet, in that when he imi- 



ART 485 

tates he cannot even do that as he will, but is bound down by 
climate, by social requirements, and especially by his building 
material. And when he is placed in new surroundings, he is 
forced to strike out for himself. 

Although the American colonist remained under the influence 
of English architecture, his environment forced him in the first 
place to build his house of wood instead of stone as in England, 
and in wood he could not so easily copy the pattern. It had to 
be a new variation of the older art. And so architecture, although 
it more slavishly follov^ed the mother country than any other art, 
was the earliest to strike out in some respects on an independent 
course. It borrowed its forms, but originated their applications; 
and while it slowly adopted new ideas of style and became gradu- 
ually free of European styles, it became free even earlier in their 
technical application, owing to the new American conditions. 
More than any other feature of her civilization, American archi- 
tecture reveals the entire history of the people from the days when 
the Puritans lived in little wooden villages to the present era of 
the sky-scraper of the large cities; and in this growth more than 
in that of any other art the whole country participates, and 
specially the West, with its tremendous energy, which is awkward 
with the violin-bow and the crayon but is well versed in piling 
stone on stone. 

In colonial days, English renaissance architecture was imitated 
in wood, a material which necessitated slender columns and called 
for finer detail and more graceful lines than were possible in 
stone. One sees to-day, especially in the New England States, 
many such buildings quite unaltered; and the better of these in 
Salem, Cambridge, and Newport are, in spite of their lightness, 
substantial and distinguished as no European would think pos- 
sible in so ordinary a material as wood. Large, beautiful halls, 
with broad, open staircases and broad balusters, greet the visitor; 
large fireplaces, with handsomely carved chimney-pieces, high 
wainscotings on the walls and beautiful beams across the ceilmgs. 
The more modest houses show the same thing on a smaller scale. 
There was this one style through the whole town, and its rules 
were regarded as canonical. In certain parts of the country 
there were inconspicuous traces of Spanish, French, and Dutch 
influence, which survive to-day in many places, especially in 



4.86 THE AMERICANS 

the South, and contribute to the picturesqueness of the archi- 
tectural whole. 

After the Revolutionary period, people wished to break with 
English traditions, and the immigration from many different 
countries brought a great variety of architectural stimulation. A 
time of general imitation had arrived, for in architecture also the 
country was to grow from the provincial to the national through 
a cosmopolitan stage. At the end of the eighteenth century, 
architecture was chiefly influenced by the classic Greek. Farm- 
houses masqueraded as big temples, and the thoughtless applica- 
tion of this form became so monotonous that it was not continued 
very long in private houses. Then the Capitol at Washington 
was begun by Latrobe and finished by the more competent 
Bulfinch, and it became the model for almost all state capitols 
of the Union. Bulfinch himself designed the famous State House 
of Massachusetts, but it was the Puritan spirit of Boston which 
selected the austere Greek temple to typify the public spirit. 
The entire century, in spite of many variations, stood under 
this influence, and until recently nobody has ventured to put up 
a civil structure in a freer, more picturesque style. 

Many of these single state capitols built during the century, 
such as the old one at Albany, are admirable; while the post- 
ofiices, custom-houses, and other buildings dedicated to federal 
uses have been put up until recently cheaply and without thought. 
Lately, however, the architect has been given freer play. Mean- 
while taste had wandered from the classic era to the Middle 
Ages, and the English Gothic had come to be popular. The 
romantic took the place of the classic, and the buildings were 
made picturesque. The effect of this was most happy on church 
edifices, and about the middle of the century Richard Upjohn, 
"the father of American architecture," built a number of famous 
churches in the Gothic style. 

But in secular edifices this spirit went wholly to architectural 
lawlessness. People were too little trained to preserve a disci- 
pline of style along with the freedom of the picturesque. And 
even more unfortunate than the lack of training of the architect, 
who committed improprieties because uncertain in his judg- 
ment, there was the tastelessness of the parvenu patron, and this 
particularly in the West. Then came the time of unrest and vulgar 



ART 487 

splurge, when in a single residential street palaces from all parts 
of the world were cheaply copied, and just as in Europe forgotten 
styles were superficially reproduced. The Queen Anne style be- 
came fashionable; and then native colonial and Dutch motives 
were revived. 

This period is now long past. The last twenty-five years in the 
East and the last ten years in the West have seen this tasteless, 
hap-hazard, and ignorant experimenting with different styles give 
place to building which is thoughtful, independent, and gen- 
erally beautiful; though, of course, much that is ugly has contin- 
ued to be built. Architecture itself has developed a careful school, 
and the public has been trained by the architects. Of course, 
many regrettable buildings survive from former periods, so that 
the general impression to-day is often very confused; but the 
newer streets in the residential, as well as the business, portions of 
cities and towns display the fitting homes and office buildings of 
a wealthy, independent, and art-loving people. In comparison 
with Europe, a negative feature may be remarked; namely, the 
notable absence of rococo tendencies. It is sometimes found in 
interior decorations, but never on exteriors. 

The positive features which especially strike the European are 
the prevalence of Romanesque and of the sky-scrapers. The 
round arch of the Romans comes more immediately from southern 
France; but since its introduction to America, notably by the 
architectural genius Richardson, the round arch has become far 
more popular than in Europe, and has given rise to a character- 
istic American style, which is represented to-day in hundreds of 
substantial buildings all over the country. There is something 
heavy, rigid, and at the same time energetic, in these great arches 
resting on short massive columns, in the great, pointed, round 
towers, in the heavy balconies and the low arcades. The primitive 
force of America has found its artistic expression here, and the 
ease with which the new style has adapted itself to castle-like 
residences, banks, museums, and business houses, and the quick- 
ness with which it has been adopted, in the old streets of Boston 
as in the newer ones of Chicago and Minneapolis, all show 
clearly that it is a really living style, and not merely an architec- 
tural whim. 

The Romanesque style grew from an artistic idea, while the 



4.88 THE AMERICANS 

sky-scraper has developed through economic exigencies. New 
York is an island, wherefore the stage of her great business Hfe 
cannot be extended, and every inch has had to be most advan- 
tageously employed. It was necessary to build higher than com- 
mercial structures have ever been carried in Europe. At first 
these buildings were twenty stories high, but now they are even 
thirty. To rest such colossal structures on stone walls would 
have necessitated making the walls of the lower stories so thick 
as to take up all the most desirable room, and stone was there- 
fore replaced by steel. The entire structure is simply a steel 
framework, lightly cased in stone. Herewith arose quite new 
architectural problems. The sub-division of the twenty-story 
facade was a much simpler problem than the disposal of the 
interior space, where perhaps twenty elevators have to be speeding 
up and down, and ten thousand men going in and out each day. 
The problem has been admirably solved. The absolute adapta- 
tion of the building to its requirements, and its execution in the 
most appropriate material — namely, steel and marble — the 
shaping of the rooms to the required ends, and the carrying out 
of every detail in a thoroughly artistic spirit make a visit to the 
best office buildings of New York an aesthetic delight. And since 
very many of these are now built side of one another, they give 
the sky-line of the city a strength and significance which strike 
every one who is mature enough to find beauty in that to which he 
is not accustomed. When the problem had once been solved, 
it was natural for other industrial cities to im.itate New York, 
and the sky-scraper is now planted all over the West. 

American architecture of to-day is happily situated, because 
the population is rapidly growing, is extraordinarily wealthy, 
and seriously fond of art. An architect who has to be economical, 
must make beauty secondary to utility. In the western part of 
the country, considerable economy is often exercised and mostly 
in the very worst way. The pretentious appearance of the build- 
ing is preserved, but the construction is made cheap; the exterior 
is made of stucco instead of stone, and the interior finish is not 
carved, but pressed. This may not, after all, be so much for 
the sake of economy, as by reason of a deficient aesthetic sense. 
People who would not think of preferring a chromo-lithograph to 
an oil-painting do not as yet feel a similar distinction between 



ART 4.8g 

architectural materials. For the most part, however, the build- 
ings now erected are rich and substantial. The large public and 
semi-public buildings, court-houses and universities, state capi- 
tols and city halls, libraries and museums are generally brilliant 
examples of architecture. The same is true of the buildings for 
industrial corporation, offices, banks, hotels, life-insurance com- 
panies, stock-exchanges, counting-houses, railway stations, thea- 
tres and clubs, all of which, by their restrained beauty, inspire 
confidence and attract the eye. These are companies with such 
large capital that they never think of exercising economy on their 
buildings. The architect can do quite as he likes. New York 
has a dozen large hotels, each one of which is, perhaps, more 
splendid in marble and other stones than any hotel in Europe; and 
while Chicago, Boston, and other cities have fewer such hotels, 
they have equally handsome ones. 

The fabulously rapid and still relatively late growth of hand- 
some public buildings in the last decade is interesting from still 
another point of view. It reveals a trait in the American public 
mind which we have repeatedly contrasted with the thought of 
Europe. American ambitions have grown out of the desire for 
self-perfection. The American's own person must be scrupulously, 
neatly, and carefully dressed, his own house must be beautiful; and 
only when the whole nation, as it were, has satisfied the needs of 
the individual can aesthetic feeling go out to the community as a 
v.'hole — from the individual persons to the city, from the private 
house to the public building. It has been exactly the opposite 
on the European Continent. The ideal individual was later than 
the ideal community. Splendid public buildings were first put 
up in Europe, while people resided in ugly and uninviting houses. 

There was a period in which the American did not mind step- 
ping from his daily bath, and going from his sumptuous home 
immaculately attired to a railway station or court-house which 
was screamingly hideous and reeking with dirt. And similarly 
there was a time in which the Germans and the French moved 
in and out of the wonderful architectural monuments of their past 
in dirty clothing, and perhaps without having bathed for many 
days. In Germany the public building has influenced the individ- 
ual, and eventually worked toward beautifying his house. In 
America the individual and the private house have only very 



490 THE AMERICANS 

slowly spread their aesthetic ideals through the public buildings. 
The final results in both countries must be the same. There is 
exactly the same contrast in the ethical field; whereas in Germany 
and France public norals have spread into private life, in America 
individual morals have spread into public life. As soon as the 
transition has commenced it proceeds rapidly. 

In Germany few private houses are now built without a bath- 
room, and in America few public buildings without consideration 
for what is beautiful. The great change in railway stations indi- 
cates the rapidity of the movement. Even ten years ago there 
were huge car-sheds in the cities, and little huts in country dis- 
tricts, which so completely lacked any pretensions to beauty that 
aesthetic criticism was simply out of place. Now, on the contrary, 
most of the large cities have palatial stations, of which some are 
among the most beautiful in the world, and many railway com- 
panies have built attractive little stations all along their lines. 
As soon as such a state of things has come about, a reciprocal 
influence takes place between the individual and the communal 
desire for perfection, and the aesthetic level of the nation rises 
daily. So, too, the different arts stimulate one another. The 
architect plans his work from year to year more with the painter 
and sculptor in mind, so that the erection of new buildings and 
the growth and wealth of the people benefit not merely archi- 
tecture, but the other arts as well. 

Still other factors are doing their part to elevate the artistic life 
of the United States. And here particularly works the improved 
organization of the artistic professions. In former times, the true 
artist had to prefer Europe to his native home, because in his home 
he found no congenial spirits; this is now wholly changed. There 
is still the complaint that the American cities are even now no 
Kunststadte; and, compared with Munich or with Paris, this is 
still true. But New York is no more and no less a Kunststadte 
than is Berlin. In all the large cities of America the connoisseurs 
and patrons of art have organized themselves in clubs, and the 
national organizations of architects, painters, and sculptors, have 
become influential factors in public life; and the large art schools 
with well-known teachers and the studios of private masters have 
become great centres for artistic endeavour. A general historical 
study of architecture has even been introduced in universities, and 



ART 4gi 

already the erection of a national academy of art Is so actively dis- 
cussed that it will probably be very soon realized. Certainly every 
American artist will continue to visit Europe, as every German 
artist visits Italy; but all the conditions are now ripe in America 
for developing native talent on native soil. 

The artistic education of the public is not less important nor far 
behind the professional education of the artist. We have dis- 
cussed the general appreciation of architecture, and the same 
public education is quietly going on in the art museums. Of 
course, the public art galleries of America are necessarily far behind 
those of Europe, since the art treasures of the world were for the 
most part distributed when America began to collect. And yet 
it is surprising what treasures have been secured, and in some 
branches of modern painting and industrial art the American col- 
lections are not to be surpassed. Thus the Japanese collection 
of pottery in Boston has 'nowhere its equal, and the Metropolitan 
Museum in New York leads the world in several respects. Modern 
German art is unfortunately ill represented, but modern French 
admirably. Here is a large field open for a proper German ambi- 
tion; German art needs to be recognized much more throughout 
the country. It must show that American distrust is absolutely 
unjustified, that it has made greater artistic advances than any 
other nation, and that German pictures are quite worthy of a large 
place in the collections. 

There are many extraordinary private collections which were 
gathered during the cosmopolitan period that the nation has gone 
through. Just as foreign architecture was imitated, so the treas- 
ures of foreign countries in art and decoration were secured at any 
price; and owing to the great wealth, the most valuable things were 
bought, often without intelligent appreciation, but never without 
a stimulating effect. One is often surprised to find famous Euro- 
pean paintings in private houses, often in remote Western cities; 
and the fact that for many years Americans have been the best 
patrons of art in the markets of the world, could not have been 
without its results. At the height of this collecting period Ameri- 
can art itself probably suffered : a moderately good French picture 
was preferred to a better American picture; but all these treasures 
have indirectly benefited native art, and still do benefit it, so much 
that the better artists of the country are much opposed to the 



4g2 THE AMERICANS 

absurd protective tariff that is laid on foreign works of art. The 
ItaHan palace of Mrs. Gardner in Boston contains the most superb 
private collection; but just here one sees that the cosmopolitan 
period of collection and imitation is, after all, merely an episode in 
the history of American art. An Italian palace has no organic 
place in New England, although the artistic merits of the Gardner 
collection are perhaps nowhere surpassed. 

The temporary exhibitions which are just now much in fashion 
have, perhaps, more influence than the permanent museums. Every 
large city has its annual exhibitions, and in the artistic centres, 
one special collection comes after another. And the strongest 
general stimulation has emanated from the great expositions. 
When the nation visited Philadelphia in 1876, the American artis- 
tic sense was just waking up, and the impetus there started was 
of decisive significance. It is said that the taste for colour in house- 
hold decoration and fittings, for handsome carpets and draperies, 
came into the country at that time. When Chicago built its Court 
of Honour in 1893, which was more beautiful than what Paris could 
do seven years later, the country became for the first time aware 
that American art could stand on its own feet, and this aesthetic 
self-consciousness has stimulated endeavour through the entire 
nation. In Chicago, for the first time, the connection between 
architecture and sculpture came properly to be appreciated; and, 
more than all else, the art of the whole world was then brought 
into the American West, and that which previously had been 
familiar only to the artistic section between Boston and Washing- 
ton was offered to the masses in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Mis- 
souri. Chicago has remained since that time one of the centres 
of American architecture, and the aesthetic level of the entire West 
was raised, although it is still below that of the Eastern States. And 
once more, after a very short pause, St. Louis is ambitious enough 
to try the bold experiment which New York and Boston, like 
Berlin and Munich, have always avoided. The World's Fair at 
St. Louis will surely give new impetus to American art, and 
especially to the artistic endeavour of the Western States. 

If a feeling for art is really to pervade the people, the influence 
must not begin when persons are old enough to visit a world's fair, 
but rather in childhood. The instruction in drawing, or rather in 
art, since drawing is only one of the branches, must undertake 



ART 4P3 

the aesthetic education of the youth in school. It cannot be 
denied that America has more need of such aesthetic training of 
children than Germany. The Anglo-Saxon love of sport leads 
the youth almost solely to the bodily games which stimulate the 
fancy much less than the German games of children, and other 
influences are also lacking to direct the children's emotional life 
in the road of aesthetic pleasure. On the other hand, it must be 
admitted that the problem has been well solved in America. The 
American art training in school, say on the Prang system, which 
more than 20,000 teachers are using in class instruction, is a true 
development of the natural sense of beauty. The child learns to 
observe, learns technique, learns the value of "lines and colours, 
and learns, more than all, to create beauty. In place of merely 
copying he divides and fills a given space harmoniously, and so 
little by little goes on to make small works of art. Generations 
which have enjoyed such influences must look on their environ- 
ment with new eyes, and even in the poorest surroundings in- 
stinctively transform what they have, in the interests of beauty. 

Corresponding to these popular stimulations of the sense of 
beauty is the wish to decorate the surroundings of daily life, most 
of all the interior; even in more modest circles to make them bright, 
pleasing, and livable, whereas they have too long been bare and 
meaningless. The arts and crafts have taken great steps forward^ 
have gotten the services of true artists, and accomplished wonder- 
ful results. The glittering glasses of Tifi^any and many other 
things from his world-famous studios are unsurpassed. There 
are also the wonderfully attractive silver objects of Gorham, the 
clay vases of the Rockwood Pottery, objects in cut-glass and pearl, 
furniture in Old English and Colonial designs, and much else of a 
similar nature. And for the artistic sense it is more significant 
and important that at last even the cheap fabrics manufactured 
for the large masses reveal more and more an appreciation of 
beauty. Even the cheap furniture and ornaments have to-day 
considerable character; and no less characteristic is the general 
demand, which is much greater than that of Europe, for Oriental 
rugs. The extravagant display of flowers in the large cities, the 
splendid parks and park-ways such as surround Boston, the beau- 
tification of landscapes which Charles Eliot has so admirably 
eff^ected, and in social life the increasing fondness for coloured 



494- '^HE AMERICANS 

and aesthetic symbols, such as the gay academic costumes, the 
beautiful typography and book-bindings, and a thousand other 
things of the same sort, indicate a fresh, vigorous, and intense 
appreciation of beauty. 

While such a sense for visible beauty has been developed by 
the wealth and the artistic instruction of the country, one special 
condition more has affected not only the fine arts but also poetry 
and literature. This is the development of the national feeling, 
which more than anything else has stimulated literary and artistic 
life. The American feels that he has entered the exclusive circle 
of world powers, and must like the best of them realize and express 
his own nature. He is conscious of a mission, and the national 
feeling is unified much less by a common past than by a common 
ideal for the future. His national feeling is not sentimental, but 
aggressive; the American knows that his goal is to become typi- 
cally American. All this gives him the courage to be individual, 
to have his own points of view, and since he has now studied his- 
tory and mastered technique, this means no longer to be odd and 
freakish, but to be truly original and creative. He is now for the 
first time thoroughly aware what a wealth of artistic problems is 
offered by his own continent, by his history, by his surroundings, 
and by his social conditions. And just as American science has 
been most successful in developing the history, geography, geol- 
ogy, zoology, and anthropology of the American Continent, so now 
his new art and literature are looking about for American material. 

His hopes are high; he sees indications of a new art approach- 
ing which will excite the admiration of the world. He feels that 
the great writer is not far off who will express the New World in 
the great American novel. Who shall say that these hopes may 
not be realized to-morrow? For it is certain that he enjoys 
an unusual combination of favourable conditions for developing a 
world force. Here are a people thoroughly educated in the appre- 
ciation of literature and art — a people in the hey-day of success, 
with their national feeling growing, and having, by reason of their 
economic prosperity, the amplest means for encouraging art; a peo- 
ple who find in their own country untold treasures of artistic and 
literary problems, and who in the structure of their government 
and customs favour talent wherever it is found; a people who have 
learned much in cosmopolitan studies and to-day have mastered 



ART 495 

every technique, who have absorbed the temperament and ambi- 
tions of the most diverse races and yet developed their own con- 
sistent, national consciousness, in which indomitable will, fertile 
invention, Puritan morals, and irrepressible humour form a com- 
bination that has never before been known. The times seem 
ripe for something great 



CHAPTER TWENTY 

Religion 

THE individualistic conception of life and the religious con- 
ceptions of the world favour each other. The more that an 
individual's religious temperament sees this earthly life 
merely as a preparation for the heavenly, the more he puts all his 
efforts into the development of his individual personality. Gen- 
eral concepts, civilizations, and political povs^ers cannot, as such, 
enter the gates of heaven; and the perfection of the individual 
soul is the only thing which makes for eternal salvation. On the 
other hand, the more deeply individualism and the desire for 
self-perfection have taken hold on a person, so much the deeper 
is his conviction that the short shrift before death is not the 
whole meaning of human existence, and that his craving for 
personal development hints at an existence beyond this world. 
Through such individualism, it is true, religion is in a sense nar- 
rowed; the idea of immortality is unduly emphasized. Yet the 
whole life of an individualistic nation is necessarily religious. 
The entire American people are in fact profoundly religious, and 
have been from the day when the Pilgrim Fathers landed, down to 
the present moment. 

On the other hand, individualism cannot decide whether we 
ought to look on God with fear or with joy, to conceive Him as 
revengeful or benevolent, to think human nature sinful or good. 
The two most independent American thinkers of the eighteenth 
century, Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin, represent 
here the two extremes. The men who have made American history 
and culture took in early times the point of view of Edwards, but 
take to-day rather that of Franklin. 

Can it be said that America is really religious to-day '^. From 
first impressions, a European may judge the opposite; first and 



RELIGION 4gy 

most of all, he observes that the government does not concern 
itself v^ith the church. Article VI of the Constitution expressly 
forbids the filling of any office or any political position of honour in 
the United States being made dependent on religion, and the first 
amendment adds that Congress may never pass a law aiming to 
establish any official religion or to hinder religious freedom. This 
provision of the Constitution is closely follov^ed in the Constitu- 
tions of the several states. The government has nothing to do 
with the church; that is, the church lacks the powerful support 
of the state which it receives in all monarchical countries; and in 
fact the state interprets this neutrality prescribed by the Consti- 
tution so rigorously that, for example, statistics of religious adher- 
ence for the last great census were obtained from the church organ- 
izations, because the state has not the right to inquire into the 
religious faith of citizens. Ecclesiastics pass no state examinations 
to show their fitness to preach; millions of people belong to no 
church organization; the lower masses are not reached by any 
church, and the public schools have no religious instruction. It 
might thus appear as if the whole country were as indifferent to 
religion as European humourists have declared it to be, in saying 
that the Almighty Dollar is the American's only god. 

On looking more closely, one finds very soon that the opposite 
is the case. Although it is true that the state is not concerned 
with religion, yet this provision of the Constitution in no wise sig- 
nifies any wish to encourage religious indifference. The states 
which united to form the Federation were profoundly religious; 
both Protestants and Catholics had come to the New World to 
find religious freedom, had made great renunciations to live in 
their faith untroubled by the persecutions of the Old World, and 
every sect of Europe had adherents on this side of the ocean. Not 
a few of the states were, in their general temperament, actually 
theocratic. Not only in Puritan New England had the church 
all the power in her hands, but in the colony of Virginia, the seat 
of the English High-Churchmen, it was originally the law that one 
who remained twice away from church was flogged, and on the 
third time punished with death. When America broke away 
from England, almost every state had its special and pronounced 
religious complexion. The majority of the population in the 
separate colonies had generally forced their religion on the 



4.9S THE AMERICANS 

whole community, and religious interests were everywhere in 
the foreground. 

Although, finally, Jefferson's proposition constitutionally to sep- 
arate church and state was accepted, this move is not to be 
interpreted as indifference, but rather as a wish to avoid religious 
conflicts. In view of such pronounced differences as those be- 
tween Puritans, Quakers, High-Churchmen, Catholics, etc., the 
establishment of any church as a state institution would have re- 
quired a subordination of the other sects which would have been 
felt as suppression. The separation of the church from the state 
simply meant freedom for every sect. Then, too, not all the sepa- 
rate states followed the federal precedent; the New England States 
especially favoured, by their taxation laws, the Calvinistic faith 
until the beginning of the nineteenth century; and Massachusetts 
was the last to introduce complete religious neutrality, as lately as 
1833. In the Southern States, the relations between church and 
state were more easily severed; and in the Middle States, even dur- 
ing colonial times, there was general religious freedom. 

Whether or not the separation was rapid or slow, or whether 
it took place under the passive submission, or through the active 
efforts of the clergy, the churches everywhere soon became the 
warmest supporter of this new condition of things. All the clergy 
found that in this way the interests of religion were best preserved. 
The state does nothing to-day for the churches except by way of 
laws in single states against blasphemy and the disturbance of 
religious worship, and by the recognition, but not the require- 
ment, of church marriage. There are also remnants of the con- 
nection in the recognized duty of the President to appoint the 
annual day of Thanksgiving, and in cases of signal danger to ap- 
point days of fasting and prayer, and one more remnant in the fact 
that the legislatures are opened by daily prayer. Otherwise, the 
state and church move in separate dimensions of space, as it were, 
and there is no attempt to change this condition. 

It was, therefore, no case of an orthodox minority being forced 
to content itself with an unchurchly state; but neither party nor 
sect nor state had the slightest wish to see church and state united. 
The appreciation of this mutual independence is so great that 
public opinion turns at once against any church which tries to exert 
a political influence, whether by supporting a certain political body 



RELIGION 499 

in local elections or by trying to obtain public moneys for its edu- 
cational institutions and hospitals. When, for instance, the prin- 
cipal anti-Catholic organization, the so-called American Protective 
Association, became regrettably wide-spread, it got its strength, 
not from any Protestant ecclesiastical opposition, but only from 
the political antipathy against that church which seemed the most 
inclined to introduce such un-American side influences in party 
politics. Every one felt that a great American principle was there 
at stake. 

Thus the legal status of the churches is that of a large private 
corporation, and nobody is required to connect himself with any 
church. Special ecclesiastical legislation is, therefore, superfluous; 
every church may organize, appoint officers, and regulate its 
property matters and disciplinary questions as it likes, and any 
disputed points are settled by civil law, as in the case of all 
corporations. Just as with business companies, a certain sort of 
collective responsibility is required; but the competition between 
churches, as between industrial corporations, is unhampered, 
and the relation of the individual to his church is that of ordinary 
contract. One hundred and forty-eight different sects appeal to- 
day for public favour. To the European this sounds at first like 
secularization, like a lowering of the church to the level of a stock 
company — like profanation. And still no Catholic bishop nor 
Orthodox minister would wish it different. Now how does this 
come about ? 

In the first place individualism has even here victoriously carried 
through its desire for self-determination. Nobody is bound to 
belong to any congregation, and one who belongs is therefore 
willing to submit himself to its organization, to subscribe to its 
by-laws, and to support its expenditures. Nobody pays public 
taxes for any church, nor is under ecclesiastical authority which 
he does not freely recognize. The church is, therefore, essentially 
relieved of any suspicion of interfering with individual freedom. 
The individual himself is for the same reason not only free to 
adopt or to reject religion, but also to express his personal views 
in any form or creed whatsoever. Only where the church ex- 
ercises no authority on thought or conscience can it be supported 
by the spirit of self-determination. Thus, the Mennonite Church 
has already developed twelve sects, the Baptist thirteen, the 



500 THE AMERICANS 

Methodist seventeen, and all of these are equally countenanced. 
At the same time the reproach can never be made that the church 
ow^es its success to the assistance of the state: w^hat it does is by its 
own might; and so its success is thoroughly intrinsic and genuine, 
its zeal is quickened, and its v^hole activities kept apart from the 
v^orld of political strife and directed tov^ard ideals. 

The church which is not supported by any written laws of the 
state is not, for that reason, dependent alone on the religious ideals 
of its adherents, but also on the unwritten law of the social com- 
munity. The less the authority of the state, the more the society 
as a whole realizes its duties; and while society remains indifferent 
as long as religion is enforced by external means, it becomes 
energetic as soon as it feels itself responsible for the general 
religious situation. The church has had no greater fortune than 
in having religion made independent of the state and made the 
affair of society at large. Here an obligation could be developed, 
which is perhaps more firm and energetic than that of the state, 
but which is nevertheless not felt as an interference, firstly, because 
the political individual is untouched, and secondly, because the 
allegiance to a certain social class is not predetermined, but be- 
comes the goal and the honourable achievement of the individual. 
Of course, even the social obligation would not have developed 
had there not been a deep religious consciousness living in the peo- 
ple; but such individual piety has been able to take much deeper 
root in a soil socially so favourable. A religiously inclined popu- 
lation, which has made churchliness a social and not a political 
obligation, affords the American church the most favourable con- 
dition for its success that could be imagined. 

One may see even from the grouping of sects, how much the 
church is supported by society. If anywhere democracy seems 
natural, it should be in the eyes of God; and yet, if Americans 
show anywhere social demarcations, it is in the province of re- 
ligion. This is true, not only of different churches where the ex- 
pense of membership is so unequal that in large cities rich and 
poor are farther apart on Sundays than on week-days, but it is 
true of the sects themselves. Methodists and Episcopalians or 
Baptists and Unitarians form in general utterly different social 
groups, and one of these sects is socially predominant in one 
section of the country, another in another. But just because 



RELIGION SOI 

religious differences are so closely related to the differences exist- 
ing in the social world, the relations between the sects are thor- 
oughly friendly. Each has its natural sphere. 

It is certain that the large number of sects are helpful in this direc- 
tion, since they make the distinction between related faiths extreme- 
ly small, sometimes even unintelligible to all except the theological 
epicure; and, indeed, they often rest on purely local or ancestral 
distinctions. Thus the German Reformed and the Dutch Re- 
formed churches are called two sects, and even the African Metho- 
dist Episcopalians and the Coloured Methodist Episcopalians wish 
to be distinguished from each other as from the other negro sects. 
Where large parties oppose each other, a war for principles can 
break out; but where the religions merge into one another through 
many small gradations, the consciousness of difference is less likely 
to be joined to any feeling of opposition. The real opponent of 
churches is the common enemy, the atheist, although the more 
straitlaced congregations are not quite sure that the Unitarians, 
who are most nearly comparable to members of the German Prot- 
estantenverein, are not best classed with the atheists. And, 
lastly, envy and jealousy do not belong to the American optimistic 
temperament, which does not grudge another his success. Thus 
everything works together to make the churches get on peacefully 
with one another. The religion of the country stretches from one 
end to the other, like a brilliant and many-hued rainbow. 

The commingling of church and society is shown everywhere. 
The church is popular, religious worship is observed in the home, 
the minister is esteemed, divine worship is well attended, the work 
of the church is generously supported, and the cause of religion 
is favoured by the social community. These outlines may now 
be filled in by a few details. The American grows up with a 
knowledge of the Bible. The church. Sabbath-school, and the 
home influences work together; a true piety rules in every farm- 
house, and whosoever supposes this to be in any-wise hypocrisy has 
no notion of the actual conditions. In many city homes of artisans 
the occupants do not know the Bible and do not wish to know it; 
but they are in no-wise hypocritical, and in the country at large reli- 
gion is so firmly rooted that people are much more likely to make 
sham pretences of general enlightenment than of religious belief. 
Thus, it is mostly a matter of course that festivals, banquets, and 



S02 THE AMERICANS 

other meetings which in Germany would not call for any religious 
demonstration whatsoever, are opened and closed by prayer. Relig- 
ious discussions are carried on with animation in every class of 
society, and one who travels about through the country finds that 
business and religion are the two great topics of conversation, 
while after them come politics. It is only among individuals who 
are so religiously disposed, that such vagaries of the supernatural 
consciousness, as spiritualism, healing by prayer, etc., could ex- 
cite so much interest. But also normal religious questions in- 
terest an incomparably large circle of people; nine hundred eccle- 
siastical newspapers and magazines are regularly published and 
circulated by the millions. 

We have said, furthermore, that divine service is well attended, 
and that clergymen are highly esteemed. In the non-political 
life, especially in the East, the great preachers are among the most 
influential people of the day. The most brilliant ecclesiastic 
of recent decades was, by common consent, Phillips Brooks, by 
whose speech and personality every one was attracted and enno- 
bled; and it has often been said that at his death, a few years ago, 
the country mourned as never before since the death of Lincoln. 
No one equal to him has appeared since, but there are many 
ministers whose ethical influence must be accounted among the 
great factors of public life; and this is true, not only of the Prot- 
estant ministers, but also of several Catholic ecclesiastics. 

The same is true in the more modest communities. The in- 
fluence of the preacher is m.ore profound in small communities of 
America than it is in Germany. But it is weakened at once if the 
representative of the church descends to politics. He is welcomed 
as an appropriate fellow-worker only in questions that border both 
on politics and on morals — as, for instance, the temperance ques« 
tion. The high position of the clergy is interestingly shown from the 
fact that the profession is very often recruited from the best classes 
of society. Owing to the American efix)rt to obliterate social dif- 
ferentiation as much as possible, it is diflftcult to make sure of the 
facts of the situation; but it seems pretty certain that the men who 
study for the ministry, especially in the Episcopalian, Presby- 
terian, Congregational, and Unitarian churches, are better born 
than the men who become school teachers and physicians. 

The preacher steps into the pulpit and faces his hearers in a 



RELIGION 503 

way which is typically American. Of course, it is impossible to 
reduce the ministerial bearing in the 194,000 churches of the coun- 
try to a single formula; but one thing may always be noted, by the 
European, in contrast to what he has seen at home — the obvious 
reference of the sermon to the worldly interests of the congrega- 
tion. Its outer form already shows this; the similes and meta- 
phors are borrowed from ordinary and even vulgar life, the appli- 
cations are often trivial, but forcible and striking, and even anec- 
dotes are introduced and given in colloquial form. More than 
that, the topic itself is chosen so as to concern personally nearly 
every one sitting in the pews; the latest vexation or disappointment, 
the cherished hope, or the duty lying nearest to the individual 
forms the starting-point of the sermon, and the words of the 
Bible are brought home to the needs of the hearers like an expected 
guest. The preacher does not try to lure the soul away from 
daily life, but he tries to bring something higher into that life 
and there to make it living; and if he is the right sort of a preacher, 
this never works as a cheapening of what is divine, but as an 
exaltation of what is human. 

Doubtless it is just on this account that the church is so popular 
and the services so well attended. To be sure, frequently the min- 
ister is a sensational pulpit elocutionist, who exploits the latest 
scandal or the newest question of the day in order to interest the 
public and attract the curious to church. Often the worldly qual- 
ity of the sermon tends to another form of depreciation. The 
sermon becomes a lecture in general culture, a scientific disserta- 
tion, or an educational exercise. Of course, the abandonment of 
the strictly religious form of sermon brings many temptations 
to all except the best preachers; yet, in general, the American ser- 
mon is unusually powerful. 

The popularity of the church does not depend only on the applic- 
ability of the sermon, but in part on social factors which are not 
nearly so strong in any part of Europe. If the congregation de- 
sires to bring the general public to church, it will gain its end most 
surely by offering attractions of a religiously indifferent nature. 
These attractions may indirectly assist the moral work of the 
church, although their immediate motive is to stimulate church- 
going. The man who goes to church merely in order to hear the 
excellent music has necessarily to listen to the sermon; and one 



504 "THE AMERICANS 

who joins the church for the sake of its secular advantages is at 
least in that way detained from the frivolous enjoyments of irre- 
ligious circles. Thus, the church has gradually become a social 
centre with functions which are as unknown in Germany as the 
" parlours " which belong to every church in America. The means 
of social attraction must naturally be adapted to the character 
of the congregation; the picnics which are popular in the small 
towns, with their raffles and social games, their lemonade and 
cake, would not be appropriate to the wealthy churches on Fifth 
Avenue. In the large cities, aesthetic attractions must be sub- 
stituted — splendid windows, soft carpets, fine music, elegant 
costumes, and fashionable bazars for charity's sake. 

But the social enjoyment consists not solely in what goes on 
within the walls of the church, but specially in the small cities and 
rural districts the church is the mediator of almost all social inter- 
course. A person who moves to a new part of the town or to an 
entirely new village, allies himself to some congregation if he is of 
the middle classes, in order to form social connections; and this 
is the more natural since, in the religious as in the social life of 
America, the women are the most active part of the family. Even 
the Young Men's Christian Associations and similar social organ- 
izations under church auspices play an important role utterly 
unlike anything in Europe. In Germany such organizations are 
popularly accounted flabby, and their very name has a stale flavour. 
In America they are the centres of social activity, even in large 
cities, and have an extraordinary influence on the hundreds of 
thousands of members who meet together in the splendid club 
buildings, and who are as much interested in sport and education 
as in religion. 

How fully the church dominates social life may be seen in the 
prevalent custom of church weddings. The state does not make 
a civil wedding obligatory. As soon as the local civil board has 
oflScially licensed the married couple, the wedding may legally 
be performed either by a civil officer or by a minister; yet it is a 
matter of course with the great majority of the population that 
the rings shall be exchanged before the altar. An avowed atheist 
is not received in any social circles above that of the ordinary 
saloon, and while a politician need not fear that his particular 
religion will prevent his being supported by the members of other 



RELIGION SOS 

churches, he has no prospects for election to any office if he should 
be found an actual materialist. When Ingersoll, who was the 
great confessed atheist of the country, travelled from city to city 
for many years preaching somewhat grotesquely and with the 
looseness of a political agitator, the arguments of David Friedrich 
Strauss, in return for an admission price, he found everywhere 
large audiences for his striking oratory, but very few believers 
among all the curious listeners. 

The man who is convinced that this mechanical interaction of 
material forces is the whole reality of the world, and who there- 
fore in his soul recognizes no connection between his will and a 
moral or spiritual power — in short, the man who does not believe 
something, no matter whether he has learned it from the church 
or from philosophy — is regarded by the typical American as a 
curious sort of person and of an inferior type; the American does 
not quite understand what such a man means by his life. By 
picturing to one's self the history of America as the history of a 
people descended from those who have been religiously perse- 
cuted, and who have made a home for such as are persecuted, ever 
since the days when the "Mayflower" landed with the Puritans 
down to these days when the Jews are flocking over the ocean from 
Russia and the Armenians from Turkey, and by picturing how 
this people have had to open up and master the country by hard 
fighting and hard work, and how they were therefore constrained to 
a rigid sense of duty, a serious conception of life, and an existence 
almost devoid of pleasure, and how now all historical and social 
traditions and all educational influences strengthen the belief 
in God and the striving for the soul's salvation — one sees that 
it cannot be otherwise, and that the moral certainty of the nation 
cannot be shaken by so-called arguments. 

It is true, of course, that one hears on all sides complaints against 
the increasing ungodliness; and it is not to be denied that the pro- 
letariat of the large cities is for the most part outside of the church. 
The population which owns no church allegiance is estimated at 
five millions, but among these there is a relatively large fraction 
of indifi^erent persons, who are too lazy to go to church; a free- 
thinking animosity to religion is uncommon. The American who 
feels that his church no longer corresponds to his own belief has 
an ample opportunity to choose among all the many sects one 



5o6 THE AMERICANS 

which is just adapted to himself. He will leave his own church 
in order to join some other straightway; but even if he leaves 
church attendance in future to his wife and daughters, or if he 
with his whole family leaves the congregation, this generally 
means that he can serve God without a minister. Real irreligion 
does not fit his character; and any doubt which science may per- 
haps occasion in him ends, not by shaking his religion, but by 
making it xviove liberal. This process of increasing freedom 
from dogma and of intellectualization of the church goes on 
steadily in the upper classes of society. The development of the 
Unitarian Church out of Orthodox Calvinism has been most in- 
fluential on the intellectual life of the nation, but its fundamental 
religious tone has not been lessened thereby. 

To be churchly means not only to comply with the ordinances of 
the church, but to contribute to the funds of the church and to 
give one's labour. And since the state does not impose any taxes 
in the interests of the church, material support is wholly dependent 
on the good will of the community. In fact, lay activity is every- 
where helpful. Of this the Sunday-schools are typical, which are 
visited by eight million children, and supported everywhere by the 
willing labour of unpaid teachers. The known property belong- 
ing to churches is estimated at seven hundred million dollars, and 
the rental of seats brings them handsome incomes. More than 
this, all church property is exempt from taxation. 

Nevertheless, so many ecclesiastical needs remain unsatisfied 
that a great deal of money has to be raised by mite-boxes, ofl&cial 
subscriptions, and bequests, in order for the churches to meet their 
expenses; and they seldom beg in vain. Members of the congre- 
gations carry on their shoulders the missions among the irreligious 
population in large cities and the heathen of foreign lands, the 
expense of church buildings, and of schools and hospitals belong- 
ing to the sect, and the salaries of ministers. The theological fac- 
ulties are likewise church institutions, whether they are formally 
connected with universities or not. There are to-day 154 such 
seminaries, and this number has for some time remained almost un- 
changed. In 1870 there were only 80, but there were 142 in 1880, 
and 145 in 1890. It appears from the statistics that, of the present 
154, only 21 have more than a hundred students, while twelve 
have less than ten students. The total number of students was 



RELIGION S07 

8,009, and of teachers 994. The property of these theological 
seminaries amounts to thirty-four million dollars, and more than 
a million was given them during the last year. 

The pedagogical function of the church is not limited to the 
Sunday-school for children and the seminaries for ministers; but 
in these two branches it has a monopoly, while in all other fields, 
from the elementary school to the university, it competes with 
secular institutions, or more exactly, it complements their work. 
We have already shown how important a role private initiative 
plays in the educational life of the United States, and it is only 
natural that such private institutions should be welcomed by a 
part of the public when they bear the sanction of one or another 
religious faith. There are grammar schools, high schools, col- 
leges, and universities of the most diverse sects to meet this need; 
and their relation to religion itself is equally diverse, and ranges 
from a very close to a very loose one. Boston College, for in- 
stance, is an excellent Catholic institution consisting of a high 
school and college under the instruction of Jesuits, in which the 
education is at every moment strongly sectarian. The university 
of Chicago, on the other hand, is nominally a Baptist institution: 
yet nobody asks whether a professor who is to be appointed is 
a Baptist; no student is conscious of its Baptist character, and 
no lectures give any indication thereof. Its Baptist quality is 
limited to the statute that the president of the university and two- 
thirds of the board of overseers must be Baptists, as was the 
founder of the institution. 

While among the larger universities. Harvard, Columbia, Johns 
Hopkins, Princeton, Cornell, and all state universities, are 
officially independent of any sect, Yale is, for instance, said to 
be Congregational, although neither teachers nor students trou- 
ble themselves with the question. The smaller colleges have a 
much more truly sectarian character ; and there is no doubt that 
this is approved by large circles, especially in the Middle and 
Western States. The sectarian colleges outnumber the non- 
sectarian; and, to take a random example, we may note that in 
the state of Michigan the State University at Ann Arbor is inde- 
pendent of sect, while Adrian College is Methodist, Albion Col- 
lege Episcopalian, Alma College Presbyterian, Detroit College 
Catholic, Hilledale College Baptist, Hope College Reformed, and 



5o8 THE AMERICANS 

Olivet College is Congregational. This inclination, especially 
noticeable in country districts, to a religious education however 
so slightly coloured, shows how deeply religion pervades the whole 
people. 

To follow the separate religions and their diverse religious 
off-shoots cannot be our purpose; we must be content with a 
few superficial outlines. There is no really new religious thought 
to record ; an American religion has, so far, not appeared. The 
history of the church in the New World has only to report how 
European religions have grown under new conditions. The ap- 
parently new associations are only unimportant variations. Some 
enthusiasts have appeared from time to time to preach a new re- 
ligion with original distortions of the moral or social sense, but they 
have expressed no moral yearning of the time, and have remained 
without any deep influence. This rests in good part on the con- 
servative nature of Americans. They snatch enthusiastically at 
the newest improvements and the most modern reform, but it must 
be a reform and not a revolution. The historical continuity must 
be preserved. The Mormons, the Spiritualists, and the adherents 
of Christian Science might, with some propriety, be called pure 
American sects; but although all three of these excite much public 
curiosity, they have no importance among those religions which 
are making the civilization of the present moment. 

The religions of the United States which have the most commu- 
nicants are the Methodist, Baptist, and Roman Catholic. The 
religions, however, which have had the most important influence 
on culture are the Congregational, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and 
Unitarian. Besides these, there are the Lutheran, the Reformed, 
and the Jewish churches; all the other denominations are small 
and uninfluential. The churches which we have named can be 
more or less distinguished by their locality, although they are rep- 
resented in almost every state. The Congregationalists and Uni- 
tarians are specially numerous in the New England States, the 
Episcopalians and Presbyterians in New York and Pennsylvania, 
while the Methodists are specially strong in the South, the Baptists 
in the Middle West, and the Catholics all through the East. Such 
special demarcation rests firstly on the relation of the churches to 
different races which have settled in different places; the Episco- 
palians and Congregationalists are mainly English, the Presbyte- 



RELIGION 509 

rians are Scotch, the Catholics are Irish and South German, the 
Lutherans are North German and Scandinavian, the Reformed 
Church is German and Dutch, and Methodism has spread widely 
among the negroes. 

In close connection herewith are the social distinctions. The 
Methodist, Baptist, and Catholic religions are specially religions 
of the masses; the others are more exclusive. It is especially those 
religions of the lower classes which yield to every tendency toward 
breaking up into sects; only Catholicism maintains a firm unity 
in the New as in the Old World. 

The old Calvinistic faith which was brought over by the Puri- 
tans to the New England colonies still lives in the Congregational 
Church. This church has played a greater political part than 
any other from the colonial days, when no one could vote who was 
not a communicant, down to the time when it took an active stand 
against slavery. Its expansion was limited by an agreement with 
the Presbyterian Church; only since this was given up, has it en- 
tered all the states of the Union. And yet to-day there are in 
Massachusetts almost 700 Congregational church buildings, and 
400 in the small State of Connecticut; but only 300 in the State 
of New York, 100 in Pennsylvania, a few in the West, and still 
fewer in the South. 

As in the case of all churches, the proportion of the population 
belonging to this church can only be approximately given. Since 
the official census may ask no questions concerning religion, we 
have to rely on the figures of the church itself, which regularly refer 
to the actual members in the congregations. Now in these Evangel- 
ical, Catholic, and Jewish congregations, the conditions for mem- 
bership are so unlike that the figures are not directly comparable; 
and even among the Evangelical churches, it is clearly false to find 
the total number of souls allied to that church, as this is usuall) 
found, by multiplying the number of communicants by some 
average figure, like 3.5. In view of the social and ethnical differ- 
ences between these churches, the percentage of children, for 
instance, is very different. It may be said then, although with 
caution, that the Congregational population embraces about two 
million souls; but their importance in the shaping of American 
civilization has greatly exceeded their numerical representation. 
The spirit of this church has lent ethical seriousness and a vigor- 



510 THE AMERICANS 

ous sense of duty to the whole nation. It has founded the first 
schools, and is responsible for the independence of the country. 

It is even more necessary to weigh the votes and not to count 
them, when we speak of the optimistic daughter church of austere 
Calvinism, the Unitarian. Probably not more than one quarter 
of a million persons belong to the Unitarian Church; but the influ- 
ence of these people on literature and life, science and philosophy, 
has been incomparable. The church has existed officially since 
1815, although the new faith began to spread much earlier within 
the Calvinistic Church itself. There is nothing theologically new 
here, since the main teachings, that the Trinity is only a dogma, 
that God is One, and that Christ was an exemplary man but not 
God, go back, of course, to the fourth century. These are the Arian 
ideas, which have also been held in Europe in times past. The sig- 
nificance of the American Trinitarian controversy does not lie in 
the province of theology. In a sense, the Unitarian Church has no 
binding belief, but aims only to be an influence of ever-increasing 
faith in God, which welcomes investigation, advance, and differ- 
ence of individual thought, within the unity of a moral and ideal 
view of the universe. 

Thus it has been an entirely natural development, for example, 
for the theological faculty of Harvard University to go over from 
the Congregational to the Unitarian faith as early as the second 
decade of the last century, and in recent times to become non-sec- 
tarian and broadly Christian, filling its professional chairs with the- 
ologians of the most diverse denominations. The significance for 
civilization does not lie in the Unitarian view of God, but in its anti- 
Calvinistic conception of man. This church says that man is not 
naturally sinful, but, being the image of God, is naturally good, and 
that the salvation of his soul is not determined by a predestination 
of divine grace, but by his own right-willing. Channing was the 
Unitarian leader, and the thinkers and writers in the middle 
of the century followed in his footsteps. Their work was a source 
of moral optimism. This confession has necessarily remained 
small by reason of its radical theology, which too little satisfies the 
imagination of the profoundly pious; but the Unitarian ideas have 
come everywhere into the worship of aristocratic churches. 

The Episcopalian faith, which is English Protestantism, came to 
the shores of the New World even earlier than the faith of Calvin. 



RELIGION 511 

The English faith was organized in Virginia as early as 1607, and 
for a long time no other faith was even tolerated; and in the middle 
colonies the English High Church spread rapidly under the influ- 
ence of many missionaries from England. The secession of the 
colonies from the mother country was destined to bring a check, 
but soon after the war the Episcopalian Church of America organ- 
ized itself independently, and grew steadily through the East. It 
has to-day seventy-five bishops. It is governed by a council which 
meets every three years in two divisions — an upper, which consists 
of bishops, and a lower, composed of delegates sent from the vari- 
ous dioceses. The diocese elects its own bishop. Their creed is, 
to all intents and purposes, identical with that of the Church of 
England, and some two million souls are affiliated with this church. 

Also the Presbyterian Church of the New World goes back to 
the seventeenth century; it was first definitely organized in the be- 
ginning of the eighteenth, under Scotch and Irish influences. It 
stands on a Calvinistic foundation, but the church government is 
the distinguishing feature; at its head are the elders, the Presby- 
ters. Twelve different sects have grown out of this church — as, for 
instance, the Cumberland Presbyterians, who broke away in a pop- 
ular religious movement in 1810; other sects had started already 
on European soil — as, for instance, the Presbyterian Church of 
Wales, which is perpetuated in America. The Presbyterian popu- 
lation amounts to about four million souls. 

The Methodist and Baptist congregations are much larger. 
Methodism comes from that great movement, at the University of 
Oxford in 1729, of John and Charles Wesley, whose Sacred Club, 
with its Bibhcal bigotry, was, on account of its methodical precision, 
ridiculed as the Methodist Club; and the nickname was accepted 
and held to. It was a question of bringing the English church 
closer to the heart, of profoundly moving every individual and in- 
stilling a deeper piety in the people. In order to preach the word 
of God, it needed neither professional theologians nor church build- 
ings; laymen were to be the preachers, and the canopy of heaven 
their church. The movement began to spread in America in 1766, 
and while in England it remained for a longer time nominally with- 
in the established church, American Methodism took very early a 
different course from Episcopalianism. 

The peculiar organization of the congregation is a prominent 



512 THE AMERICANS 

feature. Candidates for membership are accepted after a six 
months' probation, popular prayer-meetings are held at any chosen 
spot, the lay preachers are permitted to deliver religious talks with- 
out giving up their secular occupations, and no pastor may remain 
longer than five years over any congregation. These and other 
provisions are rather in the nature of concessions to the religious 
needs of ordinary people; the special items of faith differ slightly 
from those of the mother church, and are of comparatively little sig- 
nificance. The number of communicants has grow^n rapidly, espe- 
cially among the negroes of the South, ov^ing to the large camp- 
meetings, where many persons sing and pray together, and work 
themselves up to a more or less hysterical point of excitement under 
the open sky. As is usual among less cultivated classes, the 
tendency to form sects has been very great; small groups are 
continually breaking away, because they cannot believe in this or 
that feature of the main church. Seventeen principal groups may 
be distinguished, and some of these only by the colour of the 
communicants. The Methodist Episcopalians are by far the most 
numerous, and all the Methodist churches together must embrace 
more than sixteen million people. 

The twelve or thirteen sects of Baptists are in some cases widely 
different in the matter of faith, although the main body of regular 
Baptists are Calvinistic, and the church is organized like the Cal- 
vinistic Congregational Church. Each congregation governs itself, 
and the one point which all have in common is that they renounce 
infant baptism; he only may be baptized who is formally able to 
acknowledge Christ, and he must be baptized not by sprinkling, 
but by immersion. This cult originated in Switzerland at the time 
of the Reformation, and gradually gained adherents all through 
Europe, but it first became widely spread in America, where it 
embraces about twelve million people. Just as Methodism is a 
sort of popular form of the Episcopalian Church, the Baptist faith 
is a popularization of the Congregational Church. The main di- 
vision of the regular Baptists is made between the Northern and 
Southern churches, a division which originated in the middle 
of the century, owing to the diversity of opinion about slavery; 
and the third main group of Baptists is made up of negroes. 

The first Lutherans to come to the New World were Dutchmen, 
who landed on Manhattan Island in 1623. But the Dutch au- 



RELIGION 513 

thorities there suppressed all churches except the Reformed Church, 
and it was not until New York came into the hands of the English 
that the Lutheran Church got its freedom. Lutherans from the 
Palatinate settled in Pennsylvania in 17 10, and in the middle of the 
eighteenth century began their definite organization into synods 
under the influence of their pastor, Muhlenberg. The church 
grew in consequence of German, and later of Scandinavian, immi- 
gration. Most of its communicants still speak German, Swedish, 
Norwegian, Finnish, and Icelandic, and those who speak English 
are mostly of German descent. All together they make a popula- 
tion of four million persons, of whom one-fifth live in Pennsylvania. 
The Lutherans have formed sixteen sects. 

There is another small Protestant sect, which likewise originated 
in Germany; this is the sect of Mennonites. As is well known, they 
combine the Baptist refusal of infant baptism with the principle of 
non-resistance. They came from Germany to Pennsylvania at the 
end of the seventeenth century in order to escape persecution, and 
were there known as the German Friends. Their little band 
has the honour of having registered, in 1688, the first protest against 
American slavery. Their numbers have since been augmented 
from Holland, Switzerland, Germany, and Russia, and to-day the 
largest part of the Mennonites is said to be in America — in spite 
of which they number hardly more than 150,000 persons. 

In many respects the Quakers may be compared with the Men- 
nonites. The Quaker Church was founded in the middle of the 
seventeenth century by an Englishman, John Fox, and spread to 
America as early as 1656, where it now numbers, perhaps, 400,000 
persons, living chiefly in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The 
Quakers lay great emphasis on silence, and even in their meetings 
they observe long pauses, in which each member communes with 
the Holy Spirit. The sins for which a Quaker may be excom- 
municated from his church are the denial of the divinity of Christ 
or of the divine origin of the Bible, enlistment in the army, encour- 
agement of war, trading in alcohol, drunkenness, blasphemy, mak- 
ing wagers, participation in lotteries, giving an oath in court, and 
requiring an oath. They dress in black or grey, and are known 
for their mild, gentle, and yielding characters. 

The Roman Catholic Church in America is little diflTerent from 
the Church in Europe. It has grown rapidly in the nineteenth 



SH THE AMERICANS 

century, owing to the tremendous numbers of Irish, South German, 
Polish, Hungarian, Italian, and Spanish immigrants. Catholic 
missionaries, it is true, were the first Christian ministers in the 
New World. They accompanied the Spanish expeditions, and 
their first bishop landed in 1528. Maryland was the chief Eng- 
lish colony of Catholics, while most of the other colonies were very 
intolerant of the Romish Church. In 1700 New York, which has 
to-day a half million Catholics, is said to have had only seven 
Catholic families; and even in 1800 the Catholic population of 
the whole United States was estimated at less than 150,000. In 
1840 they had increased tenfold, and number to-day probably ten 
millions, with sixteen archbishops and a cardinal. The Catholic 
centres, in the order of the size of congregations, are. New York, 
Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Paul, New Orleans, Baltimore, 
Cleveland, Buffalo, Newark, Providence, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, 
and Milwaukee. 

The Jews, who are said to have first come from Brazil in 1654, 
have likewise increased rapidly in recent years, owing to the extra- 
ordinary immigration from the East of Europe. They must number 
to-day about a million people, and if the latest estimates are correct, 
nearly one-half of these have not gone farther than New York City, 
which would therefore have a larger Jewish population than 
any other city in the world. The larger part of these people are 
Russian Jews, who live together in great poverty and are very little 
Americanized. The division made by the census into Orthodox 
and Reformed Jews does not represent two sects, but merely a 
manner of grouping, since the congregations present a very grad- 
ual transition from rigid Asiatic orthodoxy to a reform so com- 
plete as to be hardly Jewish at all, and in which the rabbis are 
merely lecturers on "ethical culture." 

Many other churches might be mentioned, such as the widely 
spread sect of Disciples of Christ, which originated in America, or 
the Moravians, Dunkards, and others which have come from Eu- 
rope. But it will be enough here to speak of only a few specially 
typical sects that have been manufactured in America. The 
profane expression is in place, since they are all artificially devised 
organizations, whose founders have often been thought dishon- 
est; such are the Adventists, the Mormons, the Spiritualists, and 
the Christian Scientists. The Adventists were gathered in by Wil- 



RELIGION 515 

Ham Miller, of Massachusetts, who in the year 1831 calculated from 
figures which he found in the Bible that Christ would appear again 
on earth in the year 1843. This prophecy caused a great many 
small congregations to spring up, and when the momentous year 
came and brought disillusionment, and even after a second simi- 
lar disappointment at a later year, these congregations did not 
break up, but contented themselves with the less risky prediction 
that Christ would make His appearance soon. There are Ad- 
ventists in all the states, and especially in Michigan. They have 
broken up into smaller sects, of which a few are always making 
new computations for the coming of Christ. In all, they amount 
to about two hundred thousand people. 

More famous, or perhaps more notorious, are the Mormons. 
Their first prophet, Joseph Smith, began in 1823, when he was 
eighteen years of age, to have dreams in which he was intrusted 
with a religious mission. Four years later, with the help of certain 
persons of his dreams, he "discovered" the Book of Mormon — a 
set of metal tablets on which the history of America was written in 
" reformed Egyptian " characters. The first American colony had 
been organized, according to the Book of Mormon, by a race of 
people which had helped to build the Tower of Babel, and which 
in 600 B.C. had settled in South America. The American In- 
dians, the book says, descend from this race; and Christ also, it 
says, was for a time in America. Finally, an angel came who ap- 
pointed Smith and a friend of his as priests, and they then began 
the regular formation of a church. Miracles were rumoured; mis- 
sionaries were sent out and congregations formed in several states, 
even before polygamy was ordained. In 1843 Smith received the 
inspired message which proclaimed the new ordinance of "heav- 
enly marriage." In the following year Smith was murdered, and 
his successor, Brigham Young, when hostile demonstrations be- 
came frequent, led the group of believers on a bold expedition into 
what was at that time the almost impassable West — to Utah, on 
the Great Salt Lake. 

The settlement grew, and under its rigorously theocratic govern- 
ment made remarkable economic progress. A large garden was 
planted in the wilderness, and Salt Lake City is to-day a large, 
modern town on the railroad line to California, and the Mormons 
compose only half its population. But they alone and under ter- 



Si6 THE AMERICANS 

rific difficulties carried civilization across the prairies, and as a 
token of their industry the largest church in America stands there, 
the Mormon Temple, which they built by forty years of labour, ex- 
actly according to the plans which Young saw in a vision. While 
people are readily admitted to the curious hall of prayer, no 
strangers are allowed to enter the Temple. Polygamy was intro- 
duced, undoubtedly, from no immoral motives, but from the relig- 
ious belief that an unmarried woman will not go to heaven. Eco- 
nomic motives may have helped the matter along, since the priests 
permitted new marriages only when the contracting parties had 
sufficient means to support several families, and so used the satis- 
faction of polygamous instincts as a reward for unusual economic 
industry. 

The stern morality of the American people has always looked 
on the Mormon tribe as a thorn in the flesh, and yet it was difficult 
for a long time for the federal government to suppress the abuse. 
Serious opposition began in the early eighties with the passing of 
special laws; thousands of Mormons were put in prison, and mil- 
lions of dollars were paid in fines. The Mormons fought with 
every legal means, but were repudiated by the Supreme Court, and 
finally gave in. In the year 1890 their president. Woodruff, pub- 
lished an ordinance forbidding new polygamous marriages. This 
has not prevented the Mormons from holding polygamy sacred, 
and they have abandoned it only on compulsion. The marriages 
which were solemnized before 1890 are still in force. Such polyg- 
amous families do not impress a stranger unfavourably, since, in 
spite of its complexity, their family life appears to be a happy one. 
From Utah the sect has spread to Idaho and other Western States, 
and embraces now perhaps half a million people. 

There have been some other curious religious congregations 
with unusual marriage ordinances. For instance, the Oneida 
Community has had an apparently most immoral form of cohabi- 
tation. It is here a question not so much of religion as of a com- 
munistic and economic experiment. Such experiments are, for the 
most part, short-lived and flourish secretly. Celibacy is practised 
by fifteen communities of Shakers, who live in a communistic way. 
They broke away from the Quakers at the end of the eighteenth 
century, and have unique religious ideas. God, and, therefore, 
every human soul, is thought to be a double principle, both male 



RELIGION 5iy 

and female. The male principle was revealed in Christ, the 
female in an English woman, Anne Lee, a Quakeress whose visions 
during imprisonment occasioned the formation of this sect. 

The Shakers were so called because they are "shaken" by re- 
ligious fervour; and the lower classes of the American populace are 
uncommonly predisposed to this ecstatic and hysterical religious 
excitement. General revivals, great camp-meetings, and hyster- 
ical and tumultuous meetings of prayer, with theatrical conver- 
sions and divine illuminations, have always played a prominent 
role in America. Thus at the end of the fifties, after a time of 
declining piety, a wave of religious conversion swept over the 
country, having all the appearance of a nervous epidemic. The 
doings of the rapidly growing Salvation Army also often have a 
somewhat neurotic character. 

It is difficult to say why this is so. As in every form of hysteria, 
suggestion is, of course, an important factor; but the manifesta- 
tions are so marked that there must be some special disposition 
thereto. It almost seems as if a lack of other stimulants produced 
a pathological demand for religious excitement. Certainly in 
those portions of the country which are most affected, the life of 
the great masses, at least until recently, has been colourless and 
dull. There has been no stimulation of the fancy, such as is 
afforded by the Catholic Church, or in former days was provided 
by the romantic events of monarchical history. People have 
lacked the stimulation of amusements, festivals, the theatre and 
music; daily life has been hard, morality rigorous, and alcohol was 
thought sinful. Where rehgion has been the single intellectual 
stimulus, it has become an intoxicant for the pining soul: and 
persons drank until they obtained a sort of hysterical relief from 
deadly reality. 

The seeds of mysticism easily take root on such a soil, and it is 
no accident that the chief mystical movements of our times have 
gone on in America, the country which so many suppose to be the 
theatre of purely material interests. Here we find, first of all, the 
Spiritualistic movement which began in 1848, when mysterious 
knockings were heard by the Fox family in a village of New York 
State. The sounds were interpreted as messages from dead 
friends, and as soon as these spirits commenced their material 
manifestations it was only a short step for them to appear in per- 



^i8 THE AMERICANS 

son. The leading card of Spiritualism is its supposed proof of life 
after death, and all its other features are secondary. 

On the other hand, it is natural for a teaching which depends on 
such mysterious phenomena to turn its interest to other suppos- 
ably unexplained phenomena, and therewith to become a general 
rallying-ground for mysticism. Although the Spiritualistic Church 
has about fifty thousand members, these are by no means all of 
the actual Spiritualists in America. Indeed, if Spiritualism were 
to be taken in a broader sense, including a belief in telepathic 
influences, mysterious communications, etc., the number of be- 
lievers would mount into the millions, with some adherents in the 
most highly educated circles. Even in enlightened Boston a Spir- 
itualistic church stands in the best section of the town. Its ser- 
vices have been grievously exposed from time to time, but the 
deceptions have been quickly forgotten, and this successful "re- 
ligious " enterprise is once more given credence. A short time ago, 
in Philadelphia, the spirit of Darwin was constrained to write a 
pious final contribution to his works for the benefit of a well- 
paying audience, on a typewriter which stood in the middle of the 
room, and which, of course, could be easily operated electrically 
from some other room. 

To be sure, it would be unfair to say that all spiritualism is based 
on deception, although the lively wish to see dead relatives, or 
receive communications from them, puts a high premium on the 
pious fraud. Indeed, it would be over-hasty to say that all the 
spiritualistic conceptions go against the laws of nature; for, since 
the philosophy of Spiritualism has conceived of an ether organism 
which pervades the molecular body and survives death, it has 
fairly cleverly met the demands of casual explanation. And it may 
well be thought probable that in the world of mental influences 
there is much remaining to be found out, just as a hundred years 
ago there were hypnotism and Rontgen rays; so that the zeal of 
very many people to assist in the solving of these mysteries is, per- 
haps, easily understood. 

But just where these most serious motives prevail and all idea of 
conscious deception is excluded, one sees the profound aflliliation 
of intellectual interests with the mystical tendency. Even the 
Society for Psychical Research, which aims to investigate mys- 
terious phenomena in a thoroughly scientific way, has, after all. 



RELIGION 5ig 

mostly held the interest of men who are more inclined to mys- 
ticism than to science. Mrs. Piper, of Arlington, may be called the 
most important spiritualistic medium, and Hodgson her most in- 
teresting prophet. The whole movement is, after all, religious. 
Spiritualism has a near neighbour in Theosophy, which is specially 
strong in California. The great literary charm of Hindu philos- 
ophy makes this form of mysticism more attractive to minds that 
are repelled by its vulgar forms. Hindu mysticism has, undoubt- 
edly, a future in America. 

There is a still larger circle of people who believe in Christian 
Science, the discovery of Mary Baker G. Eddy. When Mrs. Eddy 
suffered a severe illness at Lynn in 1867, she was seized by the idea 
that all illness might be only an illusion or hallucination of the 
soul, since God alone is real, and in Him there can be naught 
but good. It was therefore necessary only to realize this decep- 
tive unreality, in order to relieve the soul of its error and so to re- 
gain health. She herself became well and proceeded to read her 
principle of mental healing into the Bible, and so to develop a meta- 
physical system. She commenced her work of healing without 
medicine, and in 1875 published her book, "Science and Health, 
With a Key to the Holy Scriptures. " The book is a medium-sized 
work, has a system not unskilfully constructed, although unskil- 
fully expressed, and one who is familiar with the history of phi- 
losophy will find in it not one original thought. In spite of this, the 
book must be called one of the most successful of modern times. 
It is a rather expensive book, but has been bought by the hundreds 
of thousands. Congregations have formed all over the country, 
and built some magnificent churches; and, finally, the infectious 
bacillus of this social malady has been wafted across the ocean. 
The great feature of this new sect is its practice of healing; there 
are to-day some thirty institutions giving instruction in the art of 
metaphysical healing, and the public supports thousands of spir- 
itual healers. 

The movement is benefited by the general mistrust of academic 
medicine which pervades the lower classes of America, as may be 
seen from the ridiculous popularity of patent medicines. The 
cult is also undoubtedly helped by actual and often surprising 
cures. The healing power of faith is no new discovery; the 
effects of auto-suggestion are always important in nervous dis- 



520 THE AMERICANS 

orders, and there are indeed few pathological conditions in which 
nervous disorders do not play a part. Mrs. Eddy's disciples, in their 
consultation offices, do with the help of the inner consistency of 
their metaphysical system, which the logic of the average patient 
cannot break down, what Catholicism does at Lourdes by stimu- 
lating the imagination. The main support of Christian Science 
is, after all, the general mystical and religious disposition. Where 
religion plays such a mighty role in the popular mind, religious 
vagaries and perversions must be the order of the day; but even the 
perversions show how thoroughly the whole American people is 
pervaded by the religious spirit. 

Not only would it be unfair to estimate the religion of America 
by its perversions, but even if the religious life of the country were 
amply described in the many forms of its conservative congrega- 
tions and confessions, the most important thing would be still un- 
mentioned : the spirit of moral self-perfection common to all the 
religions of the country. To be sure, it is not to be supposed that 
all the morality in this nation is of religious origin. One sees 
clearly that this is not the case if one looks at American social 
ethics, which are independent of religious ethics, and if one notices 
how often motives from the two spheres unite in bringing about 
certain actions. The Americans would have developed a marked 
morality if they had not been brought up in church; but the 
church has co-operated, specially when the nation was young and 
when far-reaching impulses were being developed. And while 
the forms of faith have changed, the moral ideas have remained 
much the same. 

Benjamin Wadsworth was president of Harvard College in the 
beginning of the eighteenth century, and no greater religious con- 
trast could be found than that between him and his present succes- 
sor in office; between the orthodox Calvin ist who said that it is 
by God's unmerited grace that we are not all burning in the flames 
of hell, as our sins so richly deserve, and the liberal Unitarian of 
to-day. And yet President Eliot could rightly say that, even after 
these two hundred years, he gladly subscribes to all the moral 
tenets of his early predecessor. Wadsworth exhorted parents to 
teach their sons to live soberly, virtuously, and in the fear of God; 
to keep them from idleness, pride, envy, and malice; to teach them 
simple, kindly, and courteous behaviour; to see that they learn to 



RELIGION 521 

be useful in the world, and so marry and carry on their daily 
business as to avoid temptation and to grow in grace and in the 
fear of God. 

Benjamin Franklin's catalogue of virtues which he desired to 
realize in himself, was: temperance, silence, order, simplicity, in- 
dustry, honesty, justice, self-restraint, purity, peacefulness, con- 
tinence, and modesty. In this he was not thinking of the church, 
but his worldly morals came to much the same thing as the 
Puritan's ethics. The goal is everywhere moral self-perfection — to 
learn, first of all, to govern one's natural desires, not for the sake of 
the effect on others, but for the effect on one's self. To put it ex- 
tremely, the religious admonition might have read: Give, not 
that your neighbour may have more, but that you may have less; 
not in order to give your neighbour pleasure, but to discipline your- 
self in overcoming greed. The social morality developed the 
opposite motives; and even to-day the joining of both tendencies 
may be followed everywhere, and especially in many philanthropic 
deeds. The two extremes go together: social enthusiasm for being 
helpful, and the fundamentally religious instinct to give alms. 

Within the circle of ecclesiastical influences, moral concern for 
the self is everywhere in great evidence — the desire to be sober, 
temperate, industrious, modest, and God-fearing. It has been 
said that these centuries of self-mastery are the cause of America's 
final triumph. Too many other factors are there left out of ac- 
count, but undoubtedly the theocratic discipline which held back 
all immoderation and indulgence, and often intolerantly extin- 
guished the lower instincts, has profoundly influenced national life. 
And to this all churches have contributed alike. It seems as if 
the Calvinistic God of severity had been complemented by a God 
of love; but practically all churches have worked as if it was nec- 
essary, first of all, to improve radically evil men, to convert evil- 
doers, and to uproot natural instincts. The American church is 
to-day what it has always been, whether in or outside of Calvinism, 
a church militant, strong in its battle against unrighteous desires. 
To be churchly means to be in the battle-camp of a party; in the 
camp itself they make merry, but every one is armed against the 
enemy. 

The final result in the great masses of people is an uncommonly 
high degree of personal purity as compared with the masses of 



522 THE AMERICANS 

Europe. Here one is not to think of the slums of large cities nor 
of the masses of still un-Americanized immigrants from Southern 
Europe, nor of those people who are under the influence of tem- 
porary abnormal conditions, such as the adventurers who flock 
together wherever gold and silver are discovered. One must look 
at the people in the fields and the work-shops, in the country and 
the small city, or at the average citizen of the large city, and one 
will get from these bustling millions an impression of moral earn- 
estness, simplicity, and purity. These people are poor in im- 
agination and vulgar; and yet one feels that, in the humble home 
where the average man has probably grown up, the family Bible 
lay on the table. It is not accidental that the zealous Puritans 
of Colonial times believed not only that man is preserved from hell- 
fire by the special grace of God, but also that the colonists were a 
chosen people and favoured by God with a remarkably large pro- 
portion who enjoyed His grace. They saw a moral rigour every- 
where around them, and could not suppose that such Puritan 
living was the path to everlasting torment. Since then life has 
become endlessly complicated, the pressure of circumstances has 
increased, temptations are a thousandfold more numerous, and 
consequently the general level of morality has shifted. Much is 
to-day called harmless which was then called sinful; but to-day, 
as then, the number of those who live above the general level 
of moral requirements is astonishingly large. 

As everywhere in the world, so in America; temptation and dis- 
tress fill the prisons with unfortunate and mistaken human beings. 
But this fact belongs in a wholly diff'erent social connection. We 
are thinking here of the life of those who are not amenable to law; 
for intemperance, envy, incontinence, coarseness, servility, brutal- 
ity, lack of character and kindness, and vulgarity are, in them- 
selves, not punishable. If we speak of those who are thus within 
the law, we find that life in America is purer, simpler, and more 
moral than in Europe. And the average American who lives for 
some time on the Continent of Europe comes home dismayed at the 
exaggerated and specious politeness of Europe and rejoiced at the 
greater humanity of the Americans. The incontinence of France, 
the intemperance of Germany, the business dishonesty of Southern 
Europe, are favourite examples in America of European lack of 
virtue; and aside from all local difi^erences, the Americans believe 



RELIGION S23 

that they find everywhere in Europe the symptoms of moral de- 
cadence and laxity, and on finding the same things in large 
American cities, they put the blame on Europe. 

At first sight it looks as if one who lives in a glass house were 
throwing stones. The foreigner, on hearing of American Sabbath 
observance, piety, temperance, continence, benevolence, and hon- 
esty, is at once inclined to call up the other side of the situation: 
he has seen cases of hypocrisy, he knows how many divorces and 
bank robberies there are; he has heard about benevolence from 
purely selfish motives, and about corruption. 

All this is true, and, nevertheless, false. On examining the situ- 
ation more closely, the foreigner will see that however many sins 
there are, the life of the people is intrinsically pure and moral and 
devout. It is true that there are many divorces, and that these are 
made extremely easy in some states; but infidelity is seldom the 
motive. The cause lies in the democratic spirit of self-determina- 
tion, which wants to loosen bonds that individuals no longer freely 
recognize. It might be said that this is a higher individual mor- 
ality which ends marriage when it has lost its inner sanctity. The 
American divorce does not indicate any lack of marriage fidelity; 
married life is, throughout the nation, distinctly purer than it is in 
Europe, and this is still more true of the life of young men. To be 
sure, it is easy to get material for piquant booklets, as "From 
Darkest America," and there is very much vice in Chicago, New 
Orleans, and San Francisco. The American is no saint, and a large 
city is a large city the world over. But undoubtedly the sexual 
tension is incomparably less in American life than in European, as 
may be seen by comparing the life of American students with that 
of German students of the same age. This is not due to deficient 
romantic feeling, for there is nowhere more flirting going on than in 
America; but a genuine respect of womanhood, without regard 
to social class, lends purity to the life of the men. 

It is true that American temperance does not prevent some men 
from drinking too much, and the regular prohibition laws of many 
of the states have not succeeded in suppressing a desire for physio- 
logical stimulation; and it may be even affirmed that the legal 
interdiction of the sale of alcohol in states or communities, unless 
an overwhelming majority of the population believes in abstinence, 
has done more harm than good. But it is clear that the fight 



S24. THE AMERICANS 

against alcohol which has been carried on for a hundred years, and 
notably by the church, has done an infinite amount of good. The 
whole nation is strongly set against tippling, and only the dregs of 
society gather in the saloons. And much more has been done by 
moral than by legislative influence to suppress the unhappy licen- 
tious and criminal consequences of drink among the lower classes; 
and among higher classes the deadening intellectual influence of 
sitting in beer-houses and so wasting strength, time, and moral 
vigour, is almost unknown. In good society one does not drink in 
the presence of ladies except at dinner, and the total abstainer 
becomes thereby no more conspicuous than the man in Germany 
who will not smoke ; and those who drink at table are content with 
very little. Evening table gatherings, such as the German Kom- 
merse, are accounted incorrect, and drunkenness is dishonourable. 
These ideas are making their way among the lower classes; rail- 
way companies and other corporations have not the least difficulty 
in employing only temperance men. The temperance movement, 
in spite of its mistakes and exaggerations, and aside from its great 
benefit to the health of the social organism, represents a splendid 
advance in moral self-control. A nation which accounts as im- 
moral all indulgence in alcohol that interferes with self-control has 
made thereby a tremendous ethical advance. 

It would be still easier to expose the caricatures which are pub- 
lished relative to Sabbath observance. One may say it is hypocriti- 
cal for the law to forbid theatrical performances on Sunday for 
which the scenes are changed and the curtain dropped, but to al* 
low several New York theatres to perform the cheapest vaudeville 
without curtain and without a change of scenes. But the fact is 
merely that the heavy immigration from Europe has brought 
about conditions in the metropolis which do not accord with the 
ideas of the rural majority in the state. In Boston no one 
would think of evading such a law, because the theatres would 
remain empty; where the attempt has been made to keep large 
exhibitions open on Sunday, it has been unsuccessful. 

The American people still cling to a quiet Sabbath observance, 
and the day of rest and meditation is a national institution. No 
law and no scruples forbid the railway companies to run more 
trains on Sunday than on other days, as they do in Germany; but 
instead of this there are fewer railway trains, and these are poorly 



RELIGION 52s 

patronized. People do not travel on Sunday, even if they no 
longer visit the grave-yard, which was the Puritan idea of a permis- 
sible Sunday stroll. Concessions are more and more made to Sun- 
day amusements, it is true; golf is played on Sunday in many 
places, and in contrast to England the Sunday newspapers have 
become so voluminous that if one read their fifty or sixty pages 
through, one would not have time to go to church. But in the 
main the entire American-born population, without constraint and 
therefore without hypocrisy, observes Sunday as a day of self- 
abnegation; and even many men who are not abstainers during 
the week drink no wine on Sunday. 

The masses of the people are to a high degree truthful and hon- 
ourable. It has been well said that the American has no talent for 
lying, and mistrust of a man's word strikes the Yankee as specifically 
European. From the street urchin to the minister of state, frank- 
ness is the predominant trait; and all institutions are arranged 
for a thorough-going and often exaggerated confidence. We have 
shown before that in the means of conveyance, such as street cars, 
the honesty of the public is not watched, that in the country the 
farm-house door is hardly locked, and that the most important 
mercantile agreements are concluded by a word of mouth or nod of 
the head. There are scoundrels who abuse all this, who swindle the 
street-car companies and circulate false checks; but the present 
customs could never have arisen if the general public had not jus- 
tified this blind confidence. It is true that many a bank cashier 
robs the treasury; but it is much more characteristic to see a news- 
paper boy, when one gives him five cents by mistake, run after one 
in order to return the right amount. It is true that many an Irish 
politician has entered politics in order to steal from the public 
funds, but it is a more characteristic fact that everywhere letters 
too large to go in the letter-box are laid on top of it in the confi- 
dence that they will not be stolen. A school-boy who lies to the 
teacher often has, in Europe, the sympathy of the whole class, but 
not in America; children despise a lie, and in this sense the true 
American remains a child through life. 

As the American education makes for honesty, so it does for 
self-sacrifice, which is the finest result of the Puritan idea of self- 
perfection. The ascetic sacrifice for the mere sake of sacrifice 
goes against the American love of activity, although if the many 



526 THE AMERICANS 

New England popular tales are really taken from life, even this 
way of pleasing God is not uncommon in the North-Eastern States. 
But all classes of the population are willing to make sacrifices for an 
end, however abstract and impersonal. The spirit of sacrifice is 
not genuine when it parades itself before the pubHc; it works in 
secret. But anybody who watches what goes on quietly, who notes 
the life of the teacher, the minister, and the physician in all coun- 
try districts, who sees how parents sometimes suffer in order to give 
their children a better education than they themselves had, will be 
surprised at the infinite and patient sacrifices which are daily made 
by hard-working people. The spirit of quiet forbearance, so little 
noticeable on the surface, is clear to every one who looks some- 
what deeply into American life. 

Thus the more dangerous forms of missionary activity have 
always attracted Americans; and nowhere else has the nurse's 
profession, which requires so much patience, attracted so many 
women. All the world knows the sacrificing spirit which was 
shown during the war against slavery, and there is no less of that 
spirit in times of peace. Every day one observes the readiness of 
men to risk their own lives in order to save those of others; and 
one is surprised to see that the public understands this as a matter 
of course. The more modest and naturally more frequent form of 
self-sacrifice consists in giving of one's own possessions, whether a 
small sum to the contribution-box of the Salvation Army, or a pres- 
ent of millions to benevolent institutions. It is true that private 
benefactions are open to interpretation; sometimes they are made 
for the sake of social recognition, more often they are merely 
superficial, inconsiderate, or ill-timed, and therefore they are often 
detrimental to the community. But after all allowances, the 
volume of contributions to all benevolent purposes is simply 
astonishing; and here, too, the historical development shows that 
of all motives the religious has been the strongest. 

Yet in all these movements the religious motive, the soul's sal- 
vation, has been only one among other influences that are rather 
social. American philanthropy is perhaps more often religiously 
coloured than it is in Germany; but the more benefaction comes to 
be in the hands of organizations with a trained administration, the 
more the social and economic factors appear. In the same way, 
Sunday observance and temperance have come to be social 



RELIGION S27 

problems which are almost distinct from ecclesiastical considera- 
tions; and if the American is honest, upright, and pure, he himself 
scarcely knows to-day whether he is so as a Christian or as a 
gentleman. Questions of morality point everywhere from religious 
to social considerations. 



PART FOUR 
SOCIAL LIFE 



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 

The Spirit of S elf-Assertion 

ON landing in New York, the European expects new im- 
pressions and surprises— most of all, from the evidences of 
general equality in this New World. Some have heard, with 
misgivings, of the horrors of upstart equality; but more look with 
glad expectancy on the country where no traditions of caste im- 
pose distinctions between human beings, and where the Declara- 
ration of Independence has solemnly recognized as a fundamental 
truth that all men are born free and equal. Those who fear the 
equality are generally soon put at ease. They find that social 
classes, even in New York, are nicely distinguished; no work- 
stained overalls are found where a frock coat is in order. The 
other travellers are just as quickly disillusioned in their hopes of 
equality. It is a short distance from the luxury of Fifth Avenue to 
miserable tenement districts; — an abrupt social contrast, in all 
its Old World sharpness and hardness. 

If the newcomer, then, in his surprise turns to those who know 
the country, his questions will be differently answered by different 
persons. The average citizen will try to save the reputation of 
equality. No doubt, he says, equality rules in America — equality 
before the law, and equality of political rights. And such average 
patriot would be surprised to hear that this sort of equality is 
found in Europe also. But perhaps our new-comer chances on 
a mind of less typical habit. This one may reply, with the in- 
comparably sly wink of the thoughtful American, that there is no 
more equality in America than in Europe. We indulge in such 
glittering generalities in our Declaration of Independence, to give 
our good local politicians a congenial theme on public holidays, 
and so that badly paid shop clerks may solace themselves with 
such brave assertions as a compensation for their small pay. But 



5S2 THE AMERICANS 

we are not so foolish as to run amuck of nature, which after all 
has very wisely made men unlike one another. 

But both replies are in a way false, or, at least, do not touch the 
root of the matter. It is undeniable that one can no longer speak 
of an equality of wealth or means of enjoyment, or even, in spite 
of occasional modest claims to the contrary, of an equal oppor- 
tunity for education and development. In spite of this, it is a mis- 
take to suppose that on this account the spirit of equality is found 
only in judicial and political spheres. There is another, a social 
equality, of which most Americans are not conscious, because they 
do not know and can hardly imagine what life would be without 
such equality; they do not meditate on social equality, because, 
unlike political or legal equality, it is not abstractly formulative. 
The American is first aware of it after living some time in Europe, 
and the European grasps the idea only after a serious study of 
American life. 

The social sentiment of equality, although variously tinged yet 
virtually the same throughout the United States, in nowise mili- 
tates against social distinctions which result from difference of 
education, wealth, occupation, and achievement. But it does de- 
mand that all these different distinctions shall be considered exter- 
nal to the real personality. Fundamentally, all Americans are 
equal. The statement must not be misunderstood. It by no 
means coincides with the religious distinction that men are equal 
in the eyes of God, and it is not to be associated with any ethical 
ideas of life. Equality before God, and the equal worth of 
a moral act, whether done by the greatest or the humblest of God's 
children, are not social conceptions; they are significant only in 
religious, and not in social, life. And these two spheres can every- 
where be separated. It can even be said that, as profoundly as 
religion pervades every-day life in America, the characteristic prin- 
ciple of equality in the social community is wholly independent 
of the ethics of the New Testament. 

It is still less a metaphysical conception. The American popu- 
lar mind does not at all sympathize with the philosophical idea 
that individuality is only an appearance, and that we are all funda- 
mentally one being. The American thinks pluralistically, and 
brings to his metaphysics a firm belief in the absolute significance 
of the individual. And finally, the American principle of equality 



SELF-ASSERTION 533 

cvhich we wish to grasp is not rationally humanitarian; whether 
all human beings are really equal is left out of account. It is 
a question actually of this one social community living together 
in the United States and having to regulate its social affairs. 

Let us suppose that a group of similarly employed good friends 
were on an excursion, and that the young people for the sake of 
diversion were agreed to represent for a while various sorts of 
human occupation — one is to play millionaire, another beggar, 
still others judge, teacher, artisan, labourer, high official, and 
valet. Each one plays his part with the greatest abandon; one 
commands and the other obeys, one dictates and the other trem- 
bles. And yet behind it all there is a pleasant feeling that at bot- 
tom they are all just alike, and that the whole game is worth while 
merely because they know that one is in fact as good as another. 
If a real beggar or servant were to come into the circle, there would 
be no more fun, and the game would be wholly meaningless. 
Strange as it may sound, this feeling is at the bottom of social 
life in America. Every one says to himself: All of us who 
inhabit this incomparable country are at bottom comrades; one 
bakes bread and the other eats it, one sits on the coachman's box 
and the other rides inside; but this is all because we have agreed 
so to assign the r61es. One commands and the other obeys, but 
with a mutual understanding that this merely happens to be the 
most appropriate distribution of functions under the circumstances 
in which we happen to be placed. 

The real man, it is felt, is not affected by this differentiation, 
and it would not be worth while either to command or to obey if 
all men did not tacitly understand that each esteems the other as 
an equal. A division of labour is necessary, but as long as any 
one does the work apportioned to him he belongs of course to the 
fraternal circle, quite as well as the one who by reason of industrial 
conditions or natural talents comes to take a more distinguished 
or agreeable position. Whoever makes this claim honestly for 
himself assumes that every one else does likewise. On the other 
hand, whosoever thinks himself equal to those above him, but 
superior to those beneath him, conceives external differences to 
be intrinsic, and makes thus a presumptuous demand for himself. 
The man who truly sees social equality as a real part of the social 
contract, will feel toward those above as toward those below him. 



534- "^HE AMERICANS 

He will make his own claims good by the very act of recognizing 
the claims of others. The spirit of social self-assertion requires 
the intrinsic equality of all one's neighbours who belong to the 
social community in question. 

So long as one seeks equality by trying to imitate one's more 
wealthy, more educated, or more powerful neighbours and trying 
to gloze over the differences, or by consciously lowering one's self 
to the level of the poor, the uninfluential, and the uneducated, and 
either by spiritual or by material aid obliterating the distinction, 
one is not really believing in equality, but is considering the outer 
distinctions as something actual. Indeed, the zeal to wipe out 
distinctions is the most obvious admission that one feels actual 
differences to exist in the social fabric. Where the spirit of self- 
assertion, with the recognition of one's neighbour as an equal social 
being, prevails, there will be no lack of striving for outward simi- 
larity, of trying to help one's self along, and of helping others up 
to one's own position; but this is looked on as a technical matter 
and not as referring intrinsically to the participants in the social 
game. 

It is doubtful whether a European can fully appreciate this 
social point of view, because he is too apt to distort the idea into 
an ethical one. He is ready to abstract artificially from all social 
differences, and to put the ethical idea of moral equality in the 
stead of social differentiation. The social system is secondary 
then to the moral system, as in fact religion actually teaches. The 
American, however, goes in just the opposite direction. He pre- 
supposes, as a matterof course, that the citizens of the United States 
are socially equal, whether they live in the White House or work 
in the coal mine; and this point of view is not dependent on any 
ethical theory, but is itself the basis of such a theory. When we 
were speaking of the influence of religion on morality, we espe- 
cially emphasized the fact that religious ethics are everywhere 
complemented by a purely social ethic, and now we meet this new 
form of ethics. Religion requires a morality of which the princi- 
ple is clearly, though somewhat derogatorily, designated in philo- 
sophical discussions as the morality of submission, and which 
finds its counterpart in the ethical theories of moral lordship — 
the forcible and conscious suppression of the weak. Now the 
American constructs a morality of comradeship which is as far 



SELF-ASSERTION S3S 

from the morality of submission as from that of lordship; which 
is unlike either the morality of the pietist based on the religious 
idea of immortality, or the morality of Nietzsche, based on 
biological exigencies. This morality of comradeship is based 
entirely on the idea of society. 

This does not mean that it is a question of fulfilling moral 
requirements in order to escape social difficulties, or to gain social 
advantages, but of recognizing this morality simply as a social 
requirement. Such actions may be called moral because they are 
unselfish and arise from no other motive than that of the inner 
desire; and still they are not, in the ordinary sense, moral because 
they are not universally valid, and refer no further than the circle 
of the special social community. They may be compared to the 
requirements which arise in some communities out of a peculiar 
conception of honour; but the society here is a whole nation, with- 
out caste and without distinction. And, moreover, an idea of 
honour gets its force from the self-assertion of a personality, w^hile 
the social morality of the American arises in a demand for the 
recognition of another. The fundamental feeling is that the whole 
social interplay would have no meaning, and social ambition and 
success would yield no pleasure, if it were not clearly understood 
that every other member of the social community is equal to one's 
self, and that he has the absolute right to make such a claim. 

The criminal and the man without honour have forfeited that 
right; they are excluded from the community and cut off from 
the social game. But distinctions of position, of education, of 
heredity, and of property, have nothing to do with this right. 
If we are to strive for social success, we must be perfectly sure at 
the outset that we are all comrades, participating in the various 
labours of the great gay world with mutual approval and mutual 
esteem; and we must show that we believe this, by our actions. 
And because here it is not a, question of rigorous morality, but 
rather of the moral consequences of social ideals, the ethical goes 
by inappreciable steps into the ethically indifferent, into purely 
social customs and habits; and in many cases into evils and 
abuses that follow from the same social ideals. We may picture 
to ourselves the salient traits which are essential to this spirit of 
social self-assertion. 

A stranger first notices, perhaps, the perfect confidence with 



jj(5 THE AMERICANS 

which everybody goes about his business, without feehng oppressed 
by those above nor exalted by those beneath him. He feels him- 
self an equal among equals. There is no condescension to those 
beneath nor servility to those above. The typical American 
feels himself in every social situation self-assured and equal; he 
is simply master of himself, polite but frank, reserved but always 
kind. He detests patronage and condescension as much as ser- 
vility and obsequiousness. For condescension emphasizes the dif- 
ference in the rank, and presumes to challenge a possible forget- 
ting of this difference by suggesting that both the persons do 
recognize the distinction as intrinsic. A man who asserts his true 
equahty and expects in every other honourable man the same self- 
assertion, scarcely understands how purely technical differences 
of social position can affect the inner relations of man to man. 

One who grows up in such a social atmosphere does not lose 
his feeling of assurance on coming into quite a different society. 
Archibald Forbes, the Englishman, describes somewhere the 
American war correspondent, MacGahan, who was the son of an 
Ohio farmer, as he appeared in a Russian camp. "Never before," 
writes Forbes, "have I seen a young man appear so confident 
among high officers and officials. There was no trace in his man- 
ner of impudence or presumption. It was as if he had conceived 
the matter on a single principle: I am a man — a man who, in an 
honourable way and for a specific purpose, which you know or 
which I will gladly tell you, needs something which you are best 
able to give me — information, a pass, or something of the sort; 
therefore I ask it of you. It is indifferent to the logic of the situ- 
ation whether you are a small lieutenant or a general in command, 
a messenger boy, or an imperial chancellor." And some one else 
has added, "MacGahan could do anything with IgnatiefF; he 
calmly paid court to Mme. IgnatiefF, patronized Prince Gortscha- 
koff, and gave a friendly nod to the Grand Duke Nicholas." 

It is not surprismg that Enghshmen are the ones who feel this 
trait of the Americans most markedly. England, which is most 
similar to America politically, is, in this respect of real belief in 
social equality, most dissimilar; and in curious contrast to Russia, 
which is politically the very furthest removed from America, but 
which in its common life has developed most of all a feeling of 
social equality. And still the American feeling is very different 



SELF-ASSERTION 537 

from the Russian. In the Russian man, all the deeper sensibilities 
are coloured by a religious conception; he accounts himself at 
bottom, neither better nor worse than the most miserable: where- 
as the American feels, on the contrary, that he is at bottom not 
inferior to the very best. The Russian sense of equality pulls 
down and the American exalts. 

As for the Englishman, Muirhead relates as follows in his 
book, "The Land of Contrasts": "There is something wonder- 
fully rare and delicate in the finest blossoms of American civiliza- 
tion — something that can hardly be paralleled in Europe. The 
mind that has been brought up in an atmosphere theoretically 
free from all false standards and conventional distinctions acquires 
a singularly unbiased, detached, absolute, purely human way of 
viewing life. In Matthew Arnold's phrase, 'it sees life steadily 
and sees it whole'; just this attitude seems unattainable in Eng- 
land; neither in my reading nor my personal experience have I 
encountered what I mean elsewhere than in America. . . . The 
true-born American is absolutely incapable of comprehending 
the sense of difference between a lord and a plebeian that is forced 
on the most philosophical among ourselves by the mere pressure 
of the social atmosphere. It is for him a fourth dimension of 
space; it may be talked about, but practically it has no existence. 
. . . The British radical philosopher may attain the height 
of saying, 'With a great sum obtained I this freedom *; the Ameri- 
can may honestly reply, 'But I was free-born.'" 

But what Muirhead thus says of the colour of the finest flowers 
is true, if we look more closely, of the entire flora; it may not be 
so delicate and exquisite as in these flowers; it is often mixed with 
cruder colours, but every plant on American soil, if it is not just 
an ordinary weed, has a little of that dye. 

It is not correct to suppose that inequalities of wealth work 
directly against this feeling. In spite of all efforts and ambitions 
toward wealth and the tendencies to ostentation, the American 
lacks just that which makes the possession of property a distinction 
of personal worth — the off"ensive lack of consideration toward 
inferiors and the envy of superiors. As gladly as the American 
gets the best and dearest that his purse can buy, he feels no 
desire to impress the diflference on those who are less prosperous. 
He does not care to outdo the poorer man; his luxury signifies his 



538 THE AMERICANS 

personal pleasure in expenditure as an indication of his success 
in the world. But so far as he thinks of those who are looking on, 
it is of those richer persons whom he would like to imitate, and not 
of those who can afford less than himself. 

Envy was not planted in the American soul. Envy is not 
directed at the possession, but at the possessor; and therefore, it 
recognizes that the possessor is made better by what he owns. A 
person who asserts himself strains every nerve to improve his own 
condition, but never envies those who are more favoured. And 
envy would be to him as great a degradation as pure servility. 
Undoubtedly here is one of the most effective checks to socialism. 
Socialism may not spring directly from envy, but a people given 
to envy are very ready to listen to socialism; and in America social- 
ism remains a foreign cult, which is preached to deaf ears. A 
man who feels himself inferior, and who envies his wealthier 
fellows, would be glad to bring about an artificial equality by 
equalizing ownership: whereas the man who accounts himself 
equal to every one else is ready to concede the external inequality 
which lends fresh impetus and courageous endeavour to his 
existence; and this the more as the accumulation of capital be- 
comes an obviously technical matter, not immediately contributory 
to the enjoyment of life. The billionaire enjoys no more than 
the millionaire, but merely works with a more complicated 
and powerful apparatus. Even direct economic dependence does 
not depress the spirit of self-assertion. We shall have later to 
speak, indeed, of strong opposite tendencies, and to speak of 
social differentiation; but this trait remains everywhere. It is 
much more strongly in evidence in town and country than in the 
large city, and much more in the West than in the East. 

The tokens of greeting are thoroughly characteristic. An 
American doffs his hat to ladies out of respect to the sex; but men 
meet one another without that formality, and the finer differences 
in the nod of the head, expression of the eyes, and movements of 
the hat indicate the degree of personal familiarity and liking, but 
not of social position. Position is something technical, profes- 
sional, and external, which is not in question when two men meet 
on the street. They greet because they know each other, and in 
this mutual relation of personal acquaintance they are merely 
equal human beings, and not the representatives of professional 



SELF-ASSERTION 539 

grades. The careful German adjustment of the arc through 
which the hat is carried and of the angle to which the body bends, 
in deference to social position, strikes the American as nonsen- 
sical. The fundamental disregard of titles and orders is, of course, 
closely connected with such a feeling. This has two sides, and 
has particularly its exceptions, which we shall not fail to speak 
of; but, on the whole, titles and orders are under the ban. The 
American feels too clearly that every form of exaltation is at the 
same time a degradation, for it is only when all are equal that no 
one is inferior, and so soon as some one is distinguished, the prin- 
ciple of the inequality is admitted and he in turn subordinates 
himself to others. 

It would be unfair to draw the conclusion from this that Ameri- 
cans hate every sort of subordination. On the contrary, one 
who watches American workmen at their labour, or studies the 
organization of great business houses, or the playing of games 
under the direction of a captain, knows that for a specific purpose 
American subordination can become absolute. The much-boasted 
American talent for organization could not have been so bril- 
liantly confirmed if it had not found everywhere an absolute will- 
ingness for conscious subordination. But the foot-ball player does 
not feel himself inferior to the captain whose directions he follows. 
The profound objection to subordination comes out only where it 
is not a question of dividing up labour, but of the real classification 
and grading of men. It is naturally strongest, therefore, in regard 
to hereditary titles where the distinction clearly cannot be based 
on the personal merits of the inheritor. 

One of the most interesting consequences of this feeling is very 
noticeable to a stranger. The American thinks that any kind of 
work which is honourable is in principle suitable for everybody. 
To be sure, this looks differently in theory and in practice; the 
banker does not care to be a commercial traveller, nor the com- 
mercial traveller a bar-tender, nor the bar-tender a street-cleaner; 
and this not merely because he regards his own work as pleasanter, 
but as more respectable. Nevertheless, it is at once conspicuous 
with what readiness every useful sort of labour is recognized as 
honourable; and while the European of the better classes is vexed 
by the query how one can work and nevertheless remain respect- 
able, the American finds it much harder to understand how one 



54-0 THE AMERICANS 

can remain respectable without working. The way in which 
thousands of young students, both men and women, support them- 
selves during their years of study is typical. The German student 
would feel that some sort of teaching or writing was the only 
work suitable to him ; at the utmost he would undertake type-writ- 
ing. But we have seen in connection with the universities that 
the American student in narrow circumstances is not afraid during 
the summer vacations to work as porter in a hotel, or as horse-car 
driver, in order to stay a year longer at the university. Or perhaps, 
during the student year, he will earn a part of his board by taking 
care of a furnace. And none of the sons of millionaires who 
sit beside him in the lecture rooms will look down on him on that 
account. The thoughtless fellow who heaps up debts is despised, 
but not the day-labourer's son, who delivers milk in the early morn- 
ing in order to devote his day to science. 

This is everywhere the background of social conceptions. No 
honourable work is a discredit, because the real social personality 
is not touched by the casual r61e which may be assumed in the 
economic fabric. Therefore it is quite characteristic that the only 
labour which is really disliked is such as involves immediate per- 
sonal dependence, such as that of servants. The chamber-maid 
has generally much easier work than the shop girl; yet all wo- 
men flock to the shops and factories, and few care to go into 
household service. Almost all servants are immigrants from 
Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, and Germany, except the negroes 
and the Chinese of the West. Even the first generation of chil- 
dren born in the country decline to become servants. With the 
single individual, it is of course a matter of imitating his comrades 
and following general prejudices; but these prejudices have grown 
logically out of the social ideals. The working-man profession- 
ally serves industry and civilization, while the servant appears to 
have no other end than complying with the will of another person. 
The working-man adjusts himself to an abstract task, quite as 
his employer; while the servant sells a part of his free-will and 
therefore his social equality, to another man. 

Most notorious is the fixed idea that blacking shoes is the low- 
est of all menial services; and this is an hallucination which afflicts 
not only those born in the country, but even the immigrant from 
Northern Europe, as soon as he passes the Statue of Liberty in 



SELF-ASSERTION 541 

New York harbour. The problem of getting shoes blacked would 
be serious were it not for the several million negroes in the country 
and the heavy immigration from Southern Europe which does 
not get the instant prejudice against shoe-polish. But the theo- 
retical problem of why servants will gladly work very hard, but 
strike when it comes to blacking shoes, is still not solved. There 
is possibly some vague idea that blacking shoes is a symbol 
of grovelling at some one's feet, and therefore involves the utmost 
sacrifice of one's self-respect. 

Closely connected with this is the American aversion against 
giving or accepting fees. Any one giving a fee in a street-car 
would not be understood, and there are few things so unsym- 
pathetic to the American who travels in Europe as the way in 
which the lower classes look for an obolus in return for every 
trivial service or attention. A small boy who accompanies a 
stranger for some distance through a village street in order to 
point out the way, would feel insulted if he were offered a coin 
for his kindness. The waiters in the large hotels are less offended 
by tips, for they have adopted the custom brought over by Euro- 
pean waiters; but this custom has not spread much beyond the 
large cities. It is, in general, still true that the real American will 
accept pay only in so far as he can justly demand it for his labour. 
Everything above that makes him dependent on the kindness of 
some one else, and is therefore not a professional, but a personal 
matter, and for the moment obliterates social equality. 

Just as any sort of work which does not involve the sacrifice 
of the worker's free-will is suitable for every one, so the individual 
is very much less identified with his occupation than he is in 
Europe. He very often changes his occupation, A clergyman 
who is tired of the pulpit goes into a mercantile employment, 
and a merchant who has acquired some new interests proceeds to 
study until he is proficient in that field; a lav^er enters the indus- 
trial field, a manufacturer enters politics, a book dealer under- 
takes a retail furniture business, and a letter-carrier becomes a 
restaurant keeper. The American does not feel that a man is 
made by the accidents of his industrial position, but that the real 
man puts his professional clothes on or lays them off without being 
internally affected. The belief in social equality minimizes to the 
utmost the significance of a change of occupation; and it may be 



542 THE AMERICANS 

that the well-known versatility and adaptability of the American 
are mainly due to this fact. For he is so much more conscious 
than any European that a change of environment in nowise alters 
his personality, and therefore requires no really new internal ad- 
justment, which would be difficult always, but only an outward 
change — the mastery of a new technique. 

A foreigner is most astonished at these changes of occupation 
when they come after a sudden reverse of fortune. The readiness 
and quietness with which an American takes such a thing would be 
absolutely impossible, if the spirit of self-assertion had not taught 
him through his whole life that outward circumstances do not 
make the man. If a millionaire loses his property to-day, his wife 
is ready to-morrow to open a boarding-house; circumstances have 
changed, and as it has been her lot in the past to conduct her salon 
in a palace, it is now her business to provide a good noon-day meal 
for young clerks. She enjoyed the first a great deal more, and yet 
it too brought its burdens. The change is one of occupation, and 
does not change her personality. The onlooker is again and again 
reminded of actors who play their part; they appear to live in 
every role for the moment that they are playing it, but it is really 
indifferent to them at bottom whether they are called on to play 
in a cloak of ermine or in blue-jeans. One is as good as the other, 
even when the parts require one to swagger about and the other 
to sweat. 

If the members of the community feel themselves really equal, 
they will lay special importance, in their social intercourse, on all 
such factors as likewise do not accentuate external differences, 
but bind man to man without regard to position, wealth, or culture. 
This is the reason of the remarkable hold which sport has on 
American life. The American likes sport of every sort, especially 
such games as foot-ball and base-ball, rowing, wrestling, tennis 
and golf and polo, in all of which bodily exercise is used 
in competition. After these in favour come hunting, fishing, 
yachting, riding, swimming, and gymnastic exercises. The sport 
of mountain-climbing is less popular, and in general the American 
is not a great walker. 

American sport is, indeed, combined with many unsportsmanlike 
elements. In the first place, betting has taken on such propor- 
tions that financial considerations are unduly influential, and the 



SELF-ASSERTION 54.3 

identification of opposing teams with special clubs, universities, 
or cities too often brings it about, that the sportsmanlike desire 
to see the best side win is often made secondary to the unsports- 
manlike desire to see one's own side win at any cost. And yet 
even the fervour with which the spectators on the grand-stand 
manifest their partisanship is only another expression of the fact 
that the average American is intensely moved by sport; and this 
interest is so great as to overcome all social distinctions and create, 
for the time being, an absolutely equal fellow-feeling. 

Base-ball is the most popular game, and is played during the 
spring and summer. The autumn game of foot-ball is too com- 
plicated, and has become too much of a "science" to be a thor- 
oughly popular game. In the huge crowds which flock to see a 
university foot-ball game, the larger part is not always aware of 
what is happening at every moment, and can appreciate only the 
more brilliant plays. Tennis and golf are too expensive to be 
popular; and in golf, moreover, the success of a player is too in- 
dependent of the skill of his antagonist. Water sports are out of 
the question in many localities. But every lad in city or country 
plays base-ball. It can be played everywhere, can be easily fol- 
lowed by spectators, and combines the interest of team work with 
the more naive interest in the brilliant single play. It is said that 
on every warm Saturday afternoon, base-ball matches are played 
in more than thirty thousand places, before audiences of some five 
million amateurs in sport. Around the grounds sit labouring men, 
clergymen, shop-boys, professors, muckers, and millionaires, all 
participating with a community of interest and feeling of equality 
as if they were worlds removed from the petty business where 
social diff'erences are considered. 

There is only one more sovereign power than the spirit of sport 
in breaking down all social distinctions; it is American humour. 
We could not speak of political or intellectual life without empha- 
sizing this irrepressible humour; but we must not forget it for a 
moment in speaking of social life, for its influence pervades every 
social situation. The only question is whether it is the humour 
which overcomes every disturbance of the social equilibrium and 
so restores the consciousness of free and equal self-assertion, or 
whether it is this consciousness which fosters humour and seeks 
expression in a good-natured lack of respect. No immoderation, 



544- "T'HE AMERICANS 

no improper presumption, and no pomposity can survive the first 
humorous comment, and the American does not v^ait long for 
this. The soap-bubble is pricked amid general laughter, and 
equality is restored. Whether it is in a small matter or v^hether in 
a question of national importance, a latent humour pervades all 
social life. 

Not a single American newspaper appears in the morning w^ith- 
out some political joke or v^himsical comment, a humorous story, 
or a satirical article; and those who are familiar with American 
papers and then look into the European newspaper, find the 
greatest contrast to be in the absence of humour. And the same 
is true of daily life; the American is always ready for a joke and 
has one always on his lips, however dry the subject of discus- 
sion may be, and however diverse the social "position" of those 
present. A happy humorous turn will remind them all that they 
are equal fellow-citizens, and that they are not to take their dif- 
ferent functions in life too solemnly, nor to suppose that their 
varied outward circumstances introduce any real inequality. As 
soon as Americans hear a good story, they come at once to an un- 
derstanding, and it is well-known that many political personali- 
ties have succeeded because of their wit, even if its quantity was 
more than its quality. 

American humour is most typically uttered with great serious- 
ness; the most biting jest or the most extravagant nonsense is 
brought out so demurely as not at all to suggest the real intent. 
The American is a master at this, and often remarks the English- 
man's incapacity to follow him. The familiar American criticism 
of their English cousins is, in spite of Punch, certainly exagger- 
ated — as if there were no humour at all in the country which pro- 
duced Dickens. But it cannot be denied that American humour 
to-day is fresher and more spontaneous. And this may be in large 
part due to the irrepressible feeling of equality which so carries 
humour into every social sphere. The assurance of this feeling 
also makes the American ready to caricature himself or his very 
best friend. But it is necessary especially to observe the masses, 
the participants in a festival, citizens on voting day, popular 
crowds on the streets or in halls, in order to feel how all-power- 
ful their humour is. A good word thrown in makes all of them 
forget their political differences, and an amusing occurrence re- 



SELF-ASSERTION 54.5 

pays them for every disappointment. They say, Let's forget 
the foohsh quarrel about trivial differences; we would rather be 
good-natured, now that we are reminded, in spite of all differences, 
of our social equality. 

Now, out of this feeling of equality there spring far-reaching 
duties. Especially there are those which concern one's self, and 
these are the same as proceeded from the Puritan spirit of self- 
perfection. They are the same requirements, although they are 
expressed in different ethical language and somewhat differently 
accentuated. The fundamental impulse in this group of feelings 
is wholly un-Puritan and entirely social. I assert myself to be 
equal to all others who are worthy of esteem, and therefore I must 
recognize for myself all the duties which those who are richer, 
more educated, and more influential impose on themselves; in 
short, I must behave like a gentleman. The motto, which cer- 
tainly has nothing to do with religion, is noblesse oblige; but the 
nobility consists in being a citizen of America, and as such subor- 
dinate to no man. The duties which accrue are, however, quite 
similar to religious obligations. The gentleman requires of him- 
self firstly self-control and social discipline. Also in this connec- 
tion we find a sexual purity which is not known on the Continent; 
one may sit in jovial men's society after dinner with cigars around 
the fireplace a hundred times without ever hearing an unclean 
story : and if a young fellow tried to boast to his friends of his 
amorous adventures, in the European manner, he would be 
snubbed. Nowhere in the world is a young girl so safe in the 
protection of a young man. 

The gentleman is marked, first of all, by his character; every- 
thing which is low, unworthy, malicious, or even petty is fundament- 
ally disagreeable to him. The true American is not to be judged 
by certain scandal-mongering papers, nor by city politics. As 
known in private life, he is admirable in all his social attitudes. 
He has a real distaste, often in part aesthetic, for what is vulgar or 
impure; and this is true in wider as in more exclusive circles. In 
business he may look sharply to his own advantage; but even there 
he is not stingy or trivial, and he will seldom make use of a petty 
advantage, of doubtful actions, or dishonourable flattery and obse- 
quiousness in order to gain his end, nor be brutal toward a weak 
competitor. That is opposed to the American national character. 



546 THE AMERICANS 

It is less opposed, however, to the assimilated immigrant popu- 
lation, especially the Irish. 

The relation of one man to his neighbour is correspondingly up- 
right. The spirit of self-assertion educates to politeness, helpful- 
ness, good-nature, and magnanimity. European books on Amer- 
ica are fond of saying that the fundamental principle of American 
life is, "Help yourself." If that is understood to mean that the 
individual person is not expected to keep quiet and wait for some 
higher power to help him, and is expected, instead of waiting for 
the government, to go ahead and accomplish things for himself, 
it is true. We have already everywhere discovered the principle 
of individual and private initiative to be the great strength of the 
American state; the community is to act only when the strength 
of the individual is not sufficient. And the American believes in 
self-help in still another sense. He teaches his children to think 
early of economic independence; the sons even of the wealthy man 
are to begin with a small income and work up for themselves. 
Here the traditions of the pioneers are in a way perpetuated, for 
they had to conquer the soil by their own hard work. This training 
in self-help has contributed very much to make the American 
strong, and will doubtless continue to be regarded as the proper 
plan of education, however much the increasing prosperity may 
tend in the opposite direction. 

On the other hand, the motto "Help yourself" is thoroughly 
misleading, if it is taken to mean that every one must help himself 
because his neighbour will not help him. A readiness to help in 
every way is one of the most marked traits of the American, from 
the superficial courtesy to the noblest self-sacrifice. The Ameri- 
can's unlimited hospitality is well known. Where it is a question of 
mutual social intercourse, hospitality is no special virtue, and the 
lavish extravagance of present-day hospitality is rather a mistake. 
But it is different when the guest is a stranger, who has brought, 
perhaps, merely a short note of introduction. The heartiness with 
which such an one is promptly taken into the house and provided 
with every sort of convenience, arises from a much deeper impulse 
than mere delight in well-to-do sociability. In the large cities, 
the American affords his guests such lodging and entertainment 
as a European is accustomed to bestow only in the country. 

More or less remotely, all hospitality involves an idea of ex- 



SELF-ASSERTION 54.7 

change; the entirely one-sided devotion begins first in philan- 
thropy. When men feel themselves essentially equal, they may 
welcome external dissimilarities which incite them to redoubled 
efforts; but they will not like to see this unlikeness go beyond a 
certain point. Differences of power, education, and wealth are 
necessary to keep the social machinery moving; but there is a cer- 
tain lower boundary where helplessness, illiteracy, and poverty do 
really threaten the true personality. And then the whole signifi- 
cance of social community is lost. One's neighbour must not be 
debased nor deprived by outward circumstances of his inner self; 
he must have at once the means of working for culture and striv- 
ing for power and possessions. Otherwise, an inner unlikeness 
would arise which would have to be recognized, and which would 
then contradict the presuppositions of democratic society. The 
feeling of justice is aroused at the sight of helplessness, the desire 
for reform at the sight of illiteracy; and poverty inspires eager 
assistance. 

In its outward effects social helpfulness amounts to the same as 
religious benevolence, although they are at bottom far removed, 
and their difference may be recognized, however much they work 
into one another. In the world of self-perfection there is pity for 
the needy, and benevolence is offered as a religious sacrifice. In 
the world of self-assertion, the consciousness of right is upper- 
most, which will not suffer the debasing influence of poverty; and 
here benevolence is felt as a social duty by the performance of 
which social equality is preserved. It is a natural consequence of 
pity and sacrifice to encourage beggary and unsystematic alms-giv- 
ing; and the fact that in America everything is directed against 
beggary and against letting anybody feel that he is receiving alms, 
speaks for the predominance of the social over the religious mo- 
tive in America. The one who receives alms lowers himself, while 
the true social purpose is not in the charitable intent to help up the 
fallen, but to protect the social organism from the pathological 
symptom of such debasement; the belief in equality and the right 
of self-assertion must not be taken from any individual in America. 
The other extreme, state aid, legal enactments, or illness and acci- 
dent insurance, or insurance against old age or lack of employment, 
would be politically impossible. They would be an attempt on 
the individual's right of self-determination, which would be 



548 THE AMERICANS 

opposed for the sake of principle. The American social system 
demands, rather, development along a line somewhere between 
individual alms-giving and government insurance. It is a ques- 
tion of creating permanent social organizations to do away with 
poverty, illness, depravity, crime, and distress in a systematic, 
intelligent fashion. 

The connection with the state would thus be preserved, since the 
state poor-laws supervise and regulate such organizations; on the 
other hand, the connection with individuals would be preserved, 
smce they derive most of their means from private gifts and enlist 
a great deal of personal service, particularly that of women. Be- 
sides these private and semi-public organizations, there is the co- 
operation of certain state institutions on the one hand, and on the 
other of quiet individual benevolence, for which any amount of 
organization always leaves plenty of scope. Care of the poor and 
of children, social settlements and educational funds, whatever 
the forms of helpfulness, the same spirit of almost exaggerated 
benevolence inspires the gift of unlimited money, advice, time, and 
strength. Philanthropy could be improved in its outward tech- 
nique in many states. Too often politics have a disturbing in- 
fluence; inexperience and religious narrowness are in evidence; 
efforts are sometimes directed partly against one another; and 
many conditions of distress arising from the mixed population of 
the great thinly settled tracts of land, present problems which are 
still unsolved. But this has nothing to do with the recognition of 
the benevolent traits of American character. 

The readiness of the American to give to good purposes is the 
more impressive the closer one looks. From a distance, one sees 
gifts of millions of dollars which less impress one; everybody 
knows that men like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt make 
no sacrifices in contributing sums even in seven figures. But the 
person who is nearer the scene observes that there is also the wid- 
ow's mite, and that the well-to-do middle class often gives away a 
proportion of its income that seems almost too large, according to 
European ideas. And this giving is never a thoughtless throwing 
away; the giver always investigates. Almost everybody has a 
special interest, where he fulfils his benevolent duties thoughtfully 
and intelligently. Vanity hardly figures at all; the largest gifts 
are often anonymous and unheard of by the newspapers. Those 



SELF-ASSERTION S49 

who are often in the position of appealing to American public 
spirit for good purposes, soon lose the feeling that they are remind- 
ing the public of a duty or asking for an offering. The American 
gives in a way which suggests that he is delighted to be called on 
for so worthy a cause; he often adds a word of thanks to a contri- 
bution which is larger than was expected, for having his attention 
called to the cause in hand. 

And his benevolence is not all a matter of the check-book. 
Whether the wind has blown some one's hat off in the street, or 
some greater mischance has brought unhappiness, the American 
feels that he lives in the midst of a kindly disposed community. A 
feeling of comradeship is always more or less in evidence. In any 
case of sudden accident or misfortune, the way in which the Ameri- 
can unselfishly lends a hand, or the crowd instinctively organizes 
itself to give aid, always astonishes a newcomer. 

This fundamental motive shows itself in many ways; magna- 
nimity is one of the most characteristic variations. The American 
takes no advantage of the weakness or misfortune of another; he 
likes competition, but that presupposes that the competitors have 
equal advantages. An opponent's disadvantage takes away the 
pleasure of victory. During the Spanish War, the ovations ac- 
corded to the Spanish "heroes" were often decidedly beyond the 
limits of good taste; and even during the Civil War, when the 
embitterment was extreme, people outdid themselves in their kind 
treatment of the prisoners. And leading men of the North have 
lately proposed, in spirited public addresses, to erect a national 
monument to General Lee, the great leader of the Southern 
States. As in war so it is in peace. The presidential candidates 
of the two parties arranged some years ago to speak in the same 
places during the same week; but one of them was detained by 
illness in his family, and the other cancelled his speeches in order 
not to profit by the misfortune of his opponent. In the case of a 
difference of opinion which is settled by vote, say in a small club 
or committee meeting, the cheerful submission of the minority is 
generally surpassed by the magnanimity of the majority. 

This same magnanimity is shown in helping the weak; there are 
no better-natured, more considerate, and patient people than the 
American, so long as the social side of life is in question. Their 
temperamental coolness and humour stand them in good stead. At 



Sso THE AMERICANS 

bottom it is the feeling that they are all equal, and that if one has 
made a miss-step to-day and needs help, one needed it one's self 
yesterday, and may need it again to-morrow. The accident that 
one is doing one's duty at the moment while another is careless, 
indiscreet, or foolish is not to be magnified nor taken to mean 
that one's self is a better sort of a man. Such kindliness greatly 
makes for general informality. 

Among the current complaints of Europeans is, that the Ameri- 
can life lacks just this serene cordiality, the German Gemiitlichkeit. 
It is true, indeed, that the rhythm of American life is quicker and 
more energetic; so that the stranger, until he has become accus- 
tomed to the more strenuous pace, remains at first oppressed by a 
disagreeable sense of haste; just as the American who visits Ger- 
many has at first a disagreeable feeling of hide-bound pedantry 
and careless indifference. Such a first impression is superficial. 
As soon as the American is adapted to the adagio of German life, 
he feels that the slowness is not carelessness; and the German, 
when he has learned the smarter marching time of American life, 
knows in the same way that the quick, strong accent by no means 
excludes serenity and comfort. It is true that in the two countries 
these feelings are diff^erently distributed. The German Christmas- 
tide is certainly more fervent and serene than the American, but 
it is a question whether German popular life has any holiday more 
warmly solemnized than the Thanksgiving Day of New England. 
The American nature favours a purely social comfort which has less 
to do with sentiment and feeling than with the sense of affiliation. 

German informality develops itself always among social equals, 
because in Germany social differences seem to extend to the deep- 
est traits of personality; but social distinctions do not stand in the 
way of the sympathetic intercourse of Americans, because they 
hardly ever forget that such differences are external. In this sense 
the South German enjoys more Gemiitlichkeit than the North 
German, and the American more than any European. The most 
indiscriminately chosen group can be brought to a unity of feeling 
by the merest comical or pathetic accident, so that all social 
distinctions fall away like dead leaves. In the most dignified 
assembly, as at the busiest office, a. single word or jest creates 
unconsciously a sympathetic mood, in which the youngest mes- 
senger and the most important director come at once into 



SELF-ASSERTION SS^ 

equality. A feeling runs through the whole social life, as if one 
would like to say, with a jovial wink, that no one believes really in 
all the social distinctions, but is looking for what is good in the 
inner personality. 

The most energetic expression of this inner striving for equality 
lies in the feeling of justice. There is no province in which 
American and German feeHngs are so different. This is especially 
true in the matter of penal law. A crime is naturally a crime here 
as there, and the differences in penalty are mainly due to different 
political, social, and industrial institutions. The American is per- 
haps astonished at the rigour of German law regarding the press or 
Vese majestey and at the mild punishment for duelling, or certain 
social delinquencies; while the German is amazed at the severe 
American laws relating to temperance and at the mild punishment 
for slander of officials, etc. But all this does not show the least 
difference in the sense of justice, but only in the institution. The 
real difference is deeper. The German, we might say, lays the 
chief emphasis in seeing to it that on no account a criminal shall 
evade the law, while the American will on no account let an inno- 
cent man be punished. It is a matter of course that every social 
community includes delinquents, and that for the protection of 
society a penal code must do its best to suppress, to intimidate, or 
to improve the lawless will. But in view of such necessary ma- 
chinery, the American feels that every effort should be made that 
his guiltless neighbour shall not be molested, since the neighbour 
is one like himself. It is better for a hundred guilty persons to 
escape the punishment they deserve than for a single innocent 
person to be in the least aggrieved. 

The real distinctions, therefore, do not lie in the penal code, but 
in the way it is administered; to put it extremely, the German who 
is accused is guilty until he proves his innocence, while the Ameri- 
can is innocent until he is proved guilty. A single example will 
make the matter clear. Any one in the United States who has been 
charged with murder or any other misdeed and on trial found not 
guilty, can never again during his whole life be tried for the same 
crime; not even if entirely new and convincing evidence comes up 
later, nor even if he should himself confess the crime. The Ameri- 
can jurist says that the state has been given sufficient opportu- 
nity to prove the defendant's guilt. If the counsel of the state as 



SS2 THE AMERICANS 

plaintiff has not been able to convince the jury, the accused man 
is legally innocent, and is protected as a matter of principle from 
the dread of any renewal of the accusation. In American legal opin- 
ion the German method of procedure involves a certain arbitrari- 
ness, which according to the opinion of many lawyers, is tolerated 
in Germany only because of the admirable quality of the judges. 
American jurists say that about half of the testimony admitted in 
the German court-room, and two-thirds admitted in the French, 
are entirely incompatible with the legal supposition that every 
man is innocent until proved guilty. 

The different use of the oath is also characteristic of these two 
countries. The sworn testimony on the basis of " information and 
belief" is admitted without more ado, and so two contradictory 
pieces of evidence under oath are not only admissible, but are 
very common; and the German acceptance of the oath of one 
party and exclusion of that of the other seems a downright impos- 
sibility from the point of view of American law. In the same cate- 
gory is the requirement that the verdict of the jury shall be unani- 
mous. The twelve jurymen may not leave the court except under 
surveillance until they have pronounced the verdict; and thus it 
happens that they often have to sleep and eat for days in the court 
house in order to be guarded from outside influences. If after 
all they can come to no agreement, the case is dropped and the 
situation remains exactly as it was before the trial; and the state 
attorney is free to bring a new accusation. Only an unanimous 
"guilty" or "not guilty" can be accepted. In this connection, too, 
is found the unusual significance of the judicial injunctions, and 
especially of the writ of habeas corpus, derived from Magna 
Charta, which says that no free man is to be deprived of life, lib- 
erty, or property, except according to the law of the land and by 
the verdict of his peers. 

On looking over the judicial practice of the country as a whole, 
one will feel, quite as in Germany, that this great machinery suc- 
ceeds in punishing crime and protecting society; but in America 
the instinctive fear of the law is accompanied by a profounder feel- 
ing that any innocent man is perfectly safe. Every trial shows, in 
a way, most clearly the negative side of the process, that the rights 
of the defendant are to be carefully protected. And if a newcomer 
in the country recalls certain exaggerated reports in German news- 



SELF-ASSERTION 553 

papers of corruption in American courts, he should bear in mind the 
words of Choate. Shortly before going as ambassador to England, 
he made a speech before a society of jurists, of which he was presi- 
dent, on the advantages and disadvantages of trial by jury. As to 
the theoretical possibility of bribery in such cases, he said that he 
could pass the matter over, since, during his experience of forty 
years in law, he had not seen a single case in which even one 
member of any jury had been accused of having been bribed. Un- 
reliability in the administration of justice would do away at once 
with the fundamental principle of American social life. When 
men believe sincerely in their equality, they naturally develop a 
strong sense of justice, and regard the protection of the inno- 
cent man against every sort of prejudice, hostility, dislike, or 
disregard as the very highest function of the law. 

We have depicted the brighter side of the American sense of 
equality, and may now, with a few strokes, put in the shadows. No 
one has denied that there are unfortunate features, although some 
assert that they must be accepted or else more important advan- 
tages sacrificed. A stranger is at once struck by the tendency to 
uniformity which arises from the belief in general equality. The 
spirit of comradeship is unfavourable to individual differentiation, 
no matter whether it is a question of a man's hat and necktie or his 
religion and his theory of the universe. He is expected to demon- 
strate his uniformity by seeming no different from every one else. 
In outward matters this monotony is considerably favoured by 
industrial conditions, which produce staple articles in great quan- 
tities and distribute them from one end of the country to another. 
Exactly the same designs in fashion, arts and crafts, furniture and 
machinery are put on exhibition at the same time in the show-win- 
dows from New York to San Francisco. On the other hand, it is 
the economic custom of the American to replace everything which 
he uses very frequently. This is due to the cheapness of all manu- 
factured articles and the high price of the manual labour which is 
necessary to make repairs. It is actually cheaper to buy new shoes 
and underclothing at frequent intervals than to have the old ones 
mended, and this also provides every man with the latest styles. If 
a new style of collar is brought out to-day, there will, say among 
the thousands of Harvard students, be hardly a hundred to-mor- 
row wearing the old style. This tendency is, of course, aided by 



554- "THE AMERICANS 

the general prosperity, which enables an unusually large propor- 
tion of persons to have considerably more than they need, and to 
indulge, perhaps imitatively, in the fashionable luxuries of the 
day. 

As much as the general prosperity favours this rapid adoption of 
new fashions, it is still clear that wealth might, in itself, also help 
its possessors to distinguish themselves in outward ways; but this 
does not happen in the United States by reason of these prevalent 
social ideals. Now, the desire to do as others do affects even the 
inner life; one must play the same game and must read the same 
novel, not because one thinks it is better, but because others do it, 
and because one feels in inner accord with the social community 
only by loving and hating the same things as it. Those who do 
not like what others like, find themselves extremists at once; they 
are instinctively held off by society as bizarre or over-intense, and 
relegated to the social periphery. There are too few intermediate 
stages between the many who follow one another and the few who 
follow no one, and the finer shadings of personality are too much 
lost in this way. Americans ape one another as the officers of an 
army, and not merely in uniform, but in the adjustment of all their 
habits and desires, until comradeship becomes sterile uniformity. 

In many ways the American inventive talent tends to relieve the 
general monotony. But this effort all the time to discover new 
solutions of this or that social problem, new surprises, new enter- 
tainments, is itself only a sort of game which is played at by all 
uniformly. The small city imitates the large one, the rural popu- 
lation imitates the metropolitan; no profession cares to keep its 
own social individuality; and the press and politics of the entire 
country tend to obliterate all professional and local differences 
in social life, and to make of the whole nation a huge assembly of 
gentlemen and ladies who, whether high or low, desire to be just 
gentlemen and ladies at large. It is still not difficult to-day to 
distinguish a gentleman of Omaha from a New Yorker; but this 
is in spite of the former, who, as a matter of principle, aims to pre- 
sent the same appearance. East and West, and recently in both 
North and South, one sees the same countenance, and it is seldom 
that one hears something of an intelligent effort to kindle local 
sentiment in contrast to national uniformity. There is an appeal 
to provincialism to free itself from the system of empty mutual 



SELF-ASSERTION 555 

imitation, and yet everybody must see that the profoundest 
instincts of this country are unfavourable to the development of 
individual peculiarities. 

The dangers of this uniformity are chiefly aesthetic, although it 
is not to be forgotten that uniformity very easily grows into intel- 
lectual mediocrity, and under some circumstances may bring about 
a certain ethical listlessness. On the other hand, the unfavourable 
efi^ects of that good-nature which dominates American life are all of 
them ethical. Their amiable good-nature is, in a certain sense, the 
great virtue of the Americans; in another sense, their great failing. 
It is actually at bottom his good-nature which permits him every- 
where to overlook carelessness and crookedness, and so opposes 
with a latent resistance all efforts at reform. The individual, like 
the nation, has no gift for being cross; men avoid for their own, 
but more especially for others' sake, the disagreeable excitement. 
Since the country is prosperous and the world wags pretty well, no 
one ought to grumble if he is now and then imposed on, or if some 
one gets an advantage over him, or makes misuse of power. 
Among comrades nobody ought to play the stern pontiff. 

An earnest observer of the country said, not long since, that the 
hope of the country does not lie in those amiable people who never 
drop the smile from their lips, but in those who, on due provoca- 
tion, get thoroughly excited. Dust is settling on the country, and 
there is no great excitement to shake it off. The cobwebs of eco- 
nomic interests are being spun from point to point, and will finally 
hide the nation's ideals. Good-nature produces a great deal of 
self-content in the United States, and those are not the worst friends 
of the country who wish it might have "bad times" once more, so 
that this pleasant smile might disappear, and the general indiffer- 
ence give place to a real agitation of spirit. The affair with Spain 
brought nothing of the sort; there was only enough anger to pro- 
duce a pleasant prickling sensation, and the easy victory strength- 
ened in every way the national feeling of contentment. There 
have been a few large disasters, due to somebody's neglect of duty, 
such as the burning of a Chicago theatre, which have done some- 
thing to stimulate the public conscience and to impress on people 
how dangerous it is to let things go just as they will; but even the 
disastrous accidents which result from this carelessness are quickly 
forgotten. 



556 THE AMERICANS 

The shadows are darkest where the spirit of social equality at- 
tempts artificially to do away with those differences which properly 
exist in school and family life. It may be partly a reaction against 
the over-strict bringing up of former generations; but everywhere 
pedagogical maxims seem senselessly aiming to carry over the 
idea of equality from the great social world into the nursery. It 
has become a dogma to avoid all constraint and, if possible, all 
punishment of children, and to make every correction and rebuke 
by appealing to their insight and good-will. Thus the whole edu- 
cation and schooling goes along the line of least resistance; the 
child must follow all his own inclinations. And this idea is noth- 
ing at bottom but a final consequence of the recognition of social 
equality between all persons. To constrain another person, even 
if he is a mere child, means to infringe his personal liberty, to offer 
him an ethical affront, and so to accustom him to a sort of depend- 
ence that appears to be at variance with the American idea. Of 
course, the best people know that lack of discipline is not freedom, 
and that no strength is cultivated in the child that has always fol- 
lowed the line of least resistance and never experienced any friction. 
But the mass of people thoughtlessly overlooks this, and is content 
to see even in the family the respect of children for their parents 
and elders sacrificed to this favourite dogma. 

Nature happily corrects many of these evils. It may be sport, 
most of all, which early in the child's life introduces a severe dis- 
cipline; and here the American principle is saved, since the out- 
wardly rigid discipline which is enforced on every participant in 
the game is, nevertheless, at every moment felt to be his own will. 
The boy has himself sought out his comrades. If he had also 
chosen his parents there would be nothing against their giving him 
a good, sound punishment occasionally, instead of yielding indul- 
gently to all his moods. If sport and the severe competition of pub- 
lic life were not here to save, it would be incomprehensible that 
such spoiled children should grow up into a population which 
keeps itself so strictly organized. Lack of discipline remains, 
however, in evidence wherever the constraint appears to be arti- 
ficial and not self-chosen. Where, for instance, the discipline of 
the army sometimes leads to situations which apparently contra- 
dict "sound common sense," the free American will never forget 
that the uniform is nothing but an external detail apart from his 



SELF-ASSERTION SS7 

inner self. And even the commanding general will resort to the 
publicity of the press. In intellectual matters, all this is repeated 
in the lack of respect shown in forming judgment; every one thinks 
himself competent to decide all questions, and the most compe- 
tent judgments of others are often discounted, because everyone 
thinks himself quite as good and desires to assert himself, and feels 
in nowise called on to listen with respect to the profounder knowl- 
edge, reasoning, or experience of another. 

We have so far said nothing of those whose self-assertion and 
claims to equality are the most characteristic expression of Ameri- 
can life — the American women. We must not merely add a word 
about them at the end of the chapter; they are, at least, a chapter 
by themselves. And many who have studied American life would 
say that they are the entire story. 



CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 

The Self-Assertion of Women 

IT is said that the United States is the only country in which 
parents are disappointed on the appearance of a boy baby, but 
will greet the arrival of a girl with undisguised pleasure. Who 
will blame them ? What, after all, will a boy baby come to be ? He 
will go to work early in life, while his sisters are left to go on and 
on with their education. He may work for a position in society, 
but it will be mainly in order to let his wife play a role; he may 
amass property, but most of all in order to provide bountifully for 
his daughter. He will have to stand all his life that she may sit; 
will have to work early and late, in order that she may shine. Is 
it really worth while to bring up a boy .? But the little princess 
in the cradle has, indeed, a right to look out on the world with 
laughing eyes. She will enjoy all the privileges which nature 
specially ordained for woman, and will reach out confidently, 
moreover, for those things which nature designed peculiarly for 
man. No road is closed to her; she can follow every inclination 
of her soul, and go through life pampered and imperious. Will 
she marry .? She may not care to, but nobody will think if she 
does not that it is because she is not able to realize any cherished 
desire. Will she be happy ? Human destiny is, after all, destiny; 
but so far as nature and society, material blessings, and intellectual 
considerations can contribute toward a happy life, then surely 
the young American woman is more favoured by fortune than 
either man or woman in any other part of the world can hope to 
be. Is this advantage of hers also a gain to the family, to society, 
and the nation ? 

It is not perfectly correct to speak of the American woman as a 
type — the Southern girl is so different from the daughter of New 
England, the women of California so different from those of 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 559 

Chicago, and the different elements of population are so much 
more traceable in women than in men. And yet one does get 
a characteristic picture of the average woman. It may be too 
much influenced by the feminine figures which move in the better 
circles to be a faithful average likeness. Perhaps the young girl 
student has been too often the model, perhaps there is a remin- 
iscence of the Gibson girl; and nevertheless, one discovers some 
general features of such youth in the fair women whose hair has 
turned grey, and there is something common to the daughters of 
distinguished families and the young women of the less favoured 
classes. 

The American woman is a tall, trim figure, with erect and firm 
carriage; she is a bit like the English girl, and yet very diff^erent. 
This latter is a trifle stiffs, while the American girl is decidedly 
graceful; the lines of her figure are well moulded, and her appear- 
ance is always aided by the perfect taste of her raiment. In the 
expression of her face there is resolution and self-control, and 
with the resolution a subtle mischievous expression which is both 
tactful and amiable. And with her evident self-control there is a 
certain winsome mobility and seemingly unreserved graciousness. 
The strength appears not to contradict the grace, the determina- 
tion not to be at variance with the playfulness; her eyes and play 
of expression reveal the versatile spirit, fresh enthusiasm, and 
easy wit; yet her forehead shows how earnestly she may think 
and desire to be helpful in society, and how little contented simply 
to flirt and to please men. 

And then her expression may change so suddenly that one asks 
in vain whether this energy was, perhaps, merely put on; was 
perhaps a whimsical caprice ; perhaps her intellectual versatility 
was merely an elegant superficiality. Is she at bottom only in 
search of enjoyment \ Is this show of independence real moral 
self-assertion, and this decision real courage, or does she emanci- 
pate herself merely out of ennui; is it a search for excitement .'' 
And is her eagerness to reach out for everything merely an effect 
of her environment which is ready to give everything .f* But could 
this slim figure really be so wonderfully seductive, if her eyes and 
features did not awaken doubt and unsolved questions; if every- 
thing were clear, simple, and obvious \ Woman is everywhere full 
of contradictions; and if the American woman is different from all 



56o THE AMERICANS. 

her sisters, it is because the contradictions in her face and mien 
seem more modern, more complex and unfathomable. 

But it is vain to speak of the American woman without consid- 
ering her relations to her environment — the background, as it were, 
of her existence, the customs and institutions under which she has 
grown up and continues to live. We must speak of the education 
and schooling, the studies and occupations of women, of their social 
and domestic position, their influence, and their organized efi^orts; 
and then we shall be better able critically to evaluate that in the 
American woman which is good, and that which is perhaps omi- 
nous. 

The life of the American girl is difi^erent from that of her Euro- 
pean sisters from the moment when she enters school. Public 
school instruction is co-educational, without exception in the lower 
grades, and usually in the upper. Of the six hundred and twenty- 
eight cities of the country, five hundred and eighty-seven have 
public schools for boys and girls together, from the primary to 
the most advanced classes; and of those cities that remain, 
only thirteen, and all of them are in the East, separate the boys 
and girls in every grade. In the country, boys and girls are 
always together at school. In private schools in cities, the in- 
struction is more apt to be apart; but the public schools educate 
91 per cent, of the youth — that is, about 7,700,000 boys and 
7,600,000 girls. 

Co-education has been adopted to a difi^erent extent in the dif- 
ferent states, and even in the different grades of school has not de- 
veloped equally. The instruction of boys and girls together has 
spread from the elementary classes, and while the idea took the 
West by storm, it was less immediately adopted by the conserv- 
ative East. Practical exigencies, and especially the matter of 
economy, have greatly aff^ected this development; and yet, on the 
whole, it has been favoured by principle. There is no doubt that, 
quite apart from the expense, a return to separate instruction for 
boys and girls would be regarded by the majority of the people to- 
day as an unallowable step backward: there has been consider- 
able theoretical discussion of the matter; but the fact remains that 
the nation regards the great experiment as successful. This does 
not mean that the American thoughtlessly ignores sex differences 
in education; he is aware that the bodily, moral, and intellectual 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 561 

strength of the two sexes is different, and that their development 
proceeds along different lines. But firstly, the American school 
system, as we have seen, leaves in general great freedom in the 
selection of studies. The girls may take more French, while the 
boys in the same class more often study Latin; and many subjects 
are introduced in the curriculum expressly for one or the other 
sex — such as sewing, cooking, and type-writing for the girls, and 
carpentry for the boys. 

It is said, moreover, that just as boys and girls eat the same food 
at the family table, although it goes to make very different sorts 
of bodies, so too the same intellectual nourishment will be digested 
in a different way, and not work against the normal intellectual dif- 
ferences. It is important only for the instruction like the nourish- 
ment to be of the best sort, and it is feared that the girls' school 
would drop below the level of the boys' school if the two were to 
be made distinct. Equal thoroughness is assured only by having 
one school. Opponents of the idea affirm that this one school is 
virtually nothing but a boys' school after all, with girls merely in 
attendance, and that the school is not sufficiently adapted to the 
make-up of the young girls. 

The main point, however, lies not in the similarity of instruction, 
but in the bringing together of boys and girls. It is true that the 
success of expensive private schools in large cities proves that there 
is considerable desire among parents to have their sons go to school 
with boys and their daughters only with girls; but the nation, as a 
whole, does not take this point of view, but believes that boys and 
girls, growing up as they do together in the home and destined to 
live together as adults, should become accustomed to one another 
during the formative period of school instruction. The girls, it is 
said, are made stronger by actually working with the boys; their 
seriousness is emphasized and their energy developed, while the 
boys are refined by contact with the gentler sex — induced to be 
courteous, and influenced toward aesthetic things. And if theorists 
were actually to fear the opposite result — that is, that the boys 
should be made weak and hysterical and the girls rough and 
coarse — they would need only to look to practical experience, 
which speaks unanimously to the contrary. 

A still less well-grounded fear is that of those who wish to sepa- 
rate the sexes especially during the adolescent period. So far as 



S62 THE AMERICANS 

this exceedingly complicated question admits of a brief summing 
up, the nation finds that the sexual tension is decreased by the con- 
tact in the school; the common intellectual labour, common ambi- 
tions, and the common anxieties awaken comradeship and diminish 
all ideas of difference. Boys and girls who daily and hourly hear 
one another recite their lessons, and who write together at the 
black-board, are for one another no objects of romantic longing or 
seductive mystery. Such a result may be deplored from another 
point of view — namely, that for reasons not connected with the 
school, such romanticism is desirable; but one must admit that the 
discouragement of unripe passion in the years of development 
means purer and healthier relations between the sexes, both phys- 
ically and mentally. All regrettable one-sidedness is done away 
with. Just as in the stereoscope a normal perception of depth is 
brought out by the combination of two flat pictures, so here the 
constant combination of the masculine and feminine points of 
view results in a normal feeling of reality. 

Then, too, the school in this wise prepares the way for later social 
intercourse. Boys and girls are brought together without special 
supervision, innocently and as a matter of course, from the nursery 
to early manhood and womanhood. It is only the artificial sepa- 
ration of the two sexes, the American says, which produces that 
unsound condition of the fancy that makes the relation of the 
sexes on the European Continent so frivolous and dubious. The 
moral atmosphere of the United States is undoubtedly much freer 
from unhealthful miasms. A cooler and less sensual tempera- 
ment contributes much to this, but the comradely intercourse of 
boys and girls from the early school days to the time of marriage is 
undoubtedly an equally purifying force. The small boy very early 
feels himself the natural protector of his weaker playmate, and the 
girl can always, whether in the nursery or as a young lady in her 
mother's parlour, receive her friends alone, even when her parents 
are not at home. A little coquetry keeps alive a certain sense of 
difference, always, but any least transgression is entirely precluded 
on both sides. The boy profoundly respects his girl friend as he 
does his own sister, and she could not be safer than in his protec- 
tion. The gallantry of the European is at bottom egotistic. It is 
kind in order to win, and flatters in order to please; while the gal- 
lantry of the American is not aimed to seduce, but to serve; it does 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 563 

not play with the idea of male submission, but sincerely and truly 
gives the woman first place. 

The only logical consequence, when boys and girls enjoy not 
only equivalent but absolutely equal school training, is that their 
further education shall go on parallel. We have seen the peculiar 
position of the American college; how it is almost incomparable 
with any German institution, being a sort of intermediate member 
between the high school and true university — the scene of a four- 
year intellectual activity, resembling in some respects the German 
school, and in others the German university. We have seen how 
the college removes the young man from the parental influences 
from his eighteenth to twenty-second years, and places him in a 
new, small, and academic world of special ideals which is centred 
around some beautiful college yard. We have seen how two 
things happen in these years; on the one hand, he is prepared for 
his future occupation, especially if he is to enter a professional 
faculty of the university, and on the other he receives a broad, 
humanitarian training. We have seen also that these hundreds 
of colleges form a scale of very small gradations, whose different 
steps are adapted to the different social needs of various sections 
of the country ; that the better colleges are like a German 
Prima, with three or four semesters in the philosophical faculty of 
a university, and that the inferior colleges hardly reach the level 
of the Unterprima. In such an institution, we have found the 
source of the best that is in American intellectual life. Now this 
institution opens wide its doors to women. 

Here, in truth, co-education is less prominent. The conservative 
tendency of Eastern colleges has worked against the admission 
of women into the better of them, and the advantages of colleges 
for none but women are so well attested that the East at least will 
hardly make a change, although the Middle and Western States 
look on it virtually as a sin against inborn human rights, to es- 
tablish colleges for anything but the education of both sexes alike. 
It was easier to oppose mixed education in the college sphere 
than in the school, because the common elementary training was 
needed at the outset for both sexes, while the demand for college 
training for women came up much later, when the tradition of col- 
leges for men was already well established. Harvard College was 
already two hundred years old when, for the first time, an Ameri- 



S64 THE AMERICANS 

can college as an experiment admitted women; this was Oberlin 
College in Ohio, which began the movement in 1833. The first 
women's college was established, three years later, in Georgia — 
a pioneer institution in the South. 

But progress was slow. It was not until 1862 that the govern- 
ment gave ten million acres of land for educational institutions; 
and then higher institutions became much more numerous, espe- 
cially in the West, and from that time it was agreed that women 
should have equal privileges with men in these new colleges. 
Since then co-education in college and university has grown to 
be more and more the rule, except in the East. All state colleges 
and universities are open to women, and also the endowed uni- 
versities — Brown, Chicago, Cornell, Leland Stanford, and the 
University of Pennsylvania; some few others, as Yale, Colum- 
bia, and Johns Hopkins, allow women to attend the graduate 
schools or the professional faculties, but not the college. Statis- 
tics for all the colleges in the country show that, in the year 1880, 
only 51 per cent, were co-educational; in 1890 there were 65 per 
cent., and in 1900, 72 per cent. Practically, however, the most 
significant form of female college education is not the co-educa- 
tional, but one which creates a special college paradise for young 
women, where there are no male beguilements and distractions. 

There are six principal institutions which have taken the lead 
in making the college life of women the significant thing that it 
now is. Vassar College was the first, established on the Hudson 
River in 1861; then came Wellesley College, near Boston; Bryn 
Mawr, near Philadelphia; Smith College, in Northampton; Rad- 
cliffe College, in Cambridge; Barnard, in New York. There is a 
large number of similar institutions, as Holyoke, Baltimore, and 
others in ever-diminishing series down to institutions which are 
hardly distinguishable from girls' high schools. The number of 
girls attending strictly women's colleges in the whole country, in 
1900, was 23,900; while in mixed colleges and in the collegiate 
departments of universities there were 19,200 women students — 
just a quarter of the total number of college students. It is 
notable here that the students in women's colleges since 1890 
have increased by 700, and in mixed colleges by 9,000. It may 
be mentioned, in passing, that there are 35,000 women students 
in normal schools. 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 565 

The instruction in women's colleges is mostly by women, who 
number 1,744 — that is, about 71 per cent, of the instructors — 
while in mixed colleges the 857 women are only 10 per cent, of the 
teaching staff. In the leading co-educational universities, like Chi- 
cago, Ann Arbor, Leland Stanford, Berkeley, and others, the women 
are almost wholly taught by men. The leading women's colleges 
pursue different policies. Wellesley has almost exclusively women; 
Bryn Mawr, Vassar, and Smith have both; Radcliffe and Barnard 
are peculiar, in that by their by-laws Radcliffe is taught only by 
Harvard instructors, and Barnard only by instructors in Columbia 
University. This identification with the teaching staffs of Harvard 
and Columbia assures these two women's colleges an especially 
high intellectual level. And the same thing is accomplished, of 
course, for women by their being admitted to full privileges in 
Chicago, Stanford, and in the large state universities, such as Ann 
Arbor. But one can realize the whole charm and poetry of 
women's colleges only on a visit to the quiet groves of Wellesley, 
Bryn Mawr, Vassar, or Smith. 

In broad, handsomely kept parks there lie scattered about at- 
tractive villas, monumental halls of instruction, club-houses and 
laboratories; and here some thousand girls, seldom younger than 
eighteen nor older than twenty-five, spend four happy years at 
work and play, apart from all worldly cares. They row, play 
tennis and basket-ball, and go through gymnastic exercises; and, 
as a result, every girl leaves college fresher, healthier, and stronger 
than when she entered it. And the type of pale, over-worked 
neurasthenic is unknown. These girls have their own ambitions 
in this miniature world — their positions of honour, their meetings, 
their clubs and social sets; in which, however, only personality, 
talent, and temperament count, while wealth or parental influence 
does not come in question. The life is happy; there are dancing, 
theatrical performances, and innumerable other diversions from 
the opening celebration in the fall to the festivities in June, when 
the academic year closes. And the life is also earnest. There 
is no day without its hours of conscientious labour in the lecture 
hall, the library or study, whether this is in preparation for later 
teaching, for professional life or, as is more often the case, solely 
for the harmonious development of all the student's faculties. 
One who looks on these fresh young girls in their light costumes, 



S66 THE AMERICANS. 

the venerable English mitre-caps on their heads, sitting in the 
alcoves of the library or playing in the open air, or in their formal 
debates, in the seminary or in the festive procession on class-day, 
— sees that here is a source of the purest and subtlest idealism 
going out into American life. 

On such a foundation rests the professional training of the real 
university. Since the girl students in all the colleges of the coun- 
try outdo the men in their studies, win the highest prizes, and attend 
the most difficult lectures, the old slander about deficient brain 
substance and mental incapacity can no longer serve as a pretext 
for closing the university to competing womanhood. In fact, the 
graduate schools, which correspond to the advanced portion of a 
German philosophical faculty, and the legal and medical faculties 
of all state universities and of a few private universities are open 
to women. But one is not to suppose that the number of women 
who are thus preparing for the learned professions, as that of 
medicine, law, or the ministry, is very large. There are to-day 
44,000 women college students, but only 1,253 women graduate 
students; and in 1890 there were only 369. There are hardly 
more than a thousand in the purely professional faculties, and 
these form only 3 per cent, of the total number of students. 
The American women study mostly in colleges, therefore, and 
their aim is generally to get a well-grounded, liberal education, 
corresponding to a Gymnasium training, together with a few semes- 
ters in the philosophical faculty. But there are no limitations by 
principle; woman as such is denied no "rights," and the verdict 
is unanimous that this national experiment is technically success- 
ful. There is no indication of moral deterioration, of a lowered 
level of instruction, or of a mutual hindrance between men and 
women in the matter of study. The university, in short, opens the 
way to the learned professions. 

When a European hears of the independent careers of Ameri- 
can women, he is apt to imagine something which is unknown to 
him — a woman in the judicial wig or the minister's robe; a woman 
doctor or university professor. Thus he represents to himself the 
self-supporting women, and he easily forgets that their number is 
vanishingly small beside the masses of those who earn their living 
with very much less preparation. The professional life of the 
American woman, her instinct to support herself, and so to make 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 567 

herself equal to the man in the social and economic worlds, cannot 
be understood merely from figures; for statistics would show a 
much larger percentage of women in other countries who earn 
their living, where the instinct for independence is very much less. 
The motive is the main point. One might say that the European 
woman works because the land is too poor to support the family 
by the labour of the man alone. The American woman works 
because she wants her own career. In travelling through Europe, 
one notices women toiling painfully in the fields; this is not neces- 
sary in America, unless among the negroes. Passing through 
New England, one sees a hammock in front of every farm-house, 
and often catches the sound of a piano; the wives and daughters 
have never thought of working in the fields. But women crowd 
into all occupations in the cities, in order to have an independent 
existence and to make themselves useful. They would rather 
work in a factory or teach than to stay on the farm and spend 
their time at house-work or embroidery. 

As a matter of course, very many families are actually in need, 
and innumerable motives may lead a woman to the earning of a 
living. But if one compares the changes in the statistics of dif- 
ferent employments, and looks into the psychology of the different 
kinds of occupation, one sees clearly that the spirit of self-deter- 
mination is the decisive factor, and that women compete most 
strongly in the professions which involve some rational interest, 
and that they know where it pays to crowd the men out. There 
is no male profession, outside of the soldiery and the fire depart- 
ment, into which women have not felt themselves called. Between 
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans there are 45 female locomotive 
engineers, 31 elevator attendants, 167 masons, 5 pilots, 196 black- 
smiths, 625 coal miners, 3 auctioneers, and 1,320 professional 
huntresses. 

Apart from such curiosities, and looking at only the large groups, 
we shall discover the following professional activity of women: 
In 1900, when the last census was made, there were 23,754,000 
men and 5,319,000 women at paid employment — that is, only 18 
per cent, of the bread-winners were women. Of these, only 971,000 
were engaged in agriculture as against 9,404,000 men, while in the 
so-called professions, the intellectual occupations, there were 430,- 
000 women against 828,000 men. In domestic positions, there were 



568 THE AMERICANS. 

2,095,000 women against 3,485,000 men; in trade there were 503,- 
000 against 4,263,000, and in manufactures 1,313,000 against 
5,772,000. The total number of wage-earning women has steadily 
increased. In 1890 it amounted to only 17 per cent., and in 1880 
to only 15 per cent. The proportions in different parts of the 
country are different, and not only according to the local forms of 
industry, but also to the different stages of civilization; the more 
advanced the civilization, the more the women go into intellectual 
employments. Among a hundred wage-earning women, for in- 
stance, in the North Atlantic States, there are only 1.9 per cent, 
engaged in agriculture, but 7.6 per cent, in intellectual occupa- 
tions, 37.5 per cent, engaged in domestic service, 12.9 per cent, in 
trade, and 40.1 per cent, in manufactures. In the Southern Mid- 
dle States, on the other hand, out of a hundred women only 7.2 
per cent, are in manufactures, 2.6 per cent, in trade, and 4.4 per 
cent in intellectual professions. 

Of these occupations, the most interesting are the intellectual, 
domestic, and trading activities of women. The great majority 
in intellectual employments are teachers; the whole story of 
American culture is told by the fact that there are 327,000 women 
pedagogues — an increase of 80,000 in ten years — and only 1 1 1,- 
000 male teachers. The number of physicians has increased from 
4,557 in 1890 to 7,399 in 1900; but this is not ominous in com- 
parison with their 124,000 male colleagues. There are 52,000 
musicians and music teachers, 11,000 teachers in drawing, 5,984 
authors — a figure which has doubled since 1890; and in the news- 
paper world the troup of women reporters and journalists has 
grown in ten years from 888 to 2,193. There are 8,000 women 
officials employed by the state, over 1,000 architects produce 
feminine architecture, and 3,405 ministers preach the gospel. 

Turning to domestic activity, we find of course the international 
corps of house-servants to include the greater part; they number 
1,283,000, and the statistics do not say whether, perhaps, one or 
two of these who have a white skin were born in the country. This 
number was 1,216,000 in 1890, so that it has increased only 5.5 
per cent.; while during the same time population has increased 
20.7 per cent., and the increasing wealth has greatly raised the 
demand for service. Let us compare with this the increased num- 
ber of trained nurses, whose occupation is an arduous but in- 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 569 

dependent and in itself useful career. The number of trained 
nurses has increased from 41,000 to 108,000 — that is, by 163 per 
cent. The figures for all such domestic employments as admit 
of social independence have also increased. The female restau- 
rant keepers have increased from 86,000 to 147,000; the boarding- 
house proprietresses number 59,455, double the figure often years 
ago. The independent profession of washer-woman attracts 325,- 
000, while there are only 124,000 independent domestic labourers 
as compared with 2,454,000 men in the same occupations. The 
increase in the figures for such free professions as are classed under 
trade and commerce is in part even more striking. The number 
of female insurance agents, which in 1890 was less than 5,000, is 
now more than 10,000; book-keepers have increased from 27,000 
to 74,000; sales-women, from 58,000 to 149,000; typists and ste- 
nographers from 21,000 to 86,000 — that is, fourfold — and there 
are now 22,000 telephone and telegraph operators. The number 
of shop-keepers at 34,000 has not increased much, and is relatively 
small beside the 756,000 men. There are only 261 women whole- 
sale merchants against 42,000 men, 946 women commercial travel- 
lers against 91,000 men; the profession of lady banker has de- 
creased shamefully from 510 to 293, although this is no ground 
for despairing of the future of American banking, since the num- 
ber of bankers other than women has increased in the same time 
from 35,000 to 72,000. 

Finally, let us look at industry and manufactures. The num- 
ber of seamstresses has been the same for ten years with mathe- 
matical exactitude; that is, 146,000. Since the population has 
increased by one-fifth, it is clear that this form of work has been 
unpopular, doubtless because it involves personal abasement and 
exposure to the arbitrariness of customers, and is therefore un- 
favourable to self-assertion. At the same time the workers in 
woollen and cotton factories have increased from 92,000 to 120,- 
000, in silk factories from 20,000 to 32,000, and in cigar factories 
from 27,000 to 43,000. There are 344,000 garment-workers, 
86,000 milliners, 15,000 book-binders, 16,000 printers, 17,000 box- 
makers, and 39,000 in the shoe industry. The whole picture 
shows a body of women whose labour is hardly necessary to 
support the families of the nation, but who are firmly resolved to 
assert themselves in economic and intellectual competition, who 



S70 THE AMERICANS 

press their way into all sorts of occupations, but avoid as far as 
possible anything which restricts their personal independence, and 
seek out any occupation which augments their personality and 
their consciousness of independence. If all women who were 
not born on American soil, or if so were born of coloured parent- 
age, were omitted from these statistics, then the self-asserting 
quality of American women who earn their living would come out 
incomparably more clearly. 

The bread-winning activity of women is, however, only a frac- 
tion of their activity outside of the home. If of the 39,000,000 
men in the country, 23,754,000 have an occupation, and of the 
37,000,000 women only 5,319,000 work for a living, it is clear that 
the great majority of grown-up women earn nothing. But no- 
body who knows American life would take these women who earn 
no wages from the list of those who exert a great influence outside 
of the family circle, and assert themselves in the social organiza- 
tion. Between the two broad oceans there is hardly any signifi- 
cant movement outside of trade and politics which is not aided by 
unpaid women, who work purely out of ideal motives. Vanity, 
ambition, self-importance, love of diversion, and social aspirations 
of all kinds, of course, play a part; but the actual labour which 
women perform in the interests of the church or school, of public 
welfare, social reform, music, art, popular education, care of the 
sick, beautification and sanitation of cities, every day and every- 
where, represents incontestably a powerful in-born idealism. 

Only one motive more, which is by no means unidealistic, dic- 
tates this purely practical devotion; it is the motive of helping 
on this very self-assertion of women. Work is done for the sake 
of work, but more or less in the consciousness that one is a woman 
and that whatever good one does, raises the position of the sex. 
Thus, in women's clubs and organizations, through noisy agitation 
or quieter feminine influences, the American woman's spirit of 
self-assertion impresses itself in a hundred thousand ways. Women 
are the majority in every public lecture and in every broadly benev- 
olent undertaking; schools and churches, the care of the poor and 
the ill are enlivened by their zeal, and in this respect the East 
and the West feel quite alike. Certainly this influence beyond the 
home does not end with direct self-conscious labour; it goes on 
where there are no women presidents, secretaries, treasurers, and 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 571 

committee members, but wherever women go for enjoyment and 
relaxation. Women form a large majority in art exhibitions, con- 
certs, theatres, and in church services; women decide the fate of 
every new novel; and everywhere women stand in the foreground, 
wide awake and self-assertive. 

It is incredible to the European how very much the unselfish 
and high-minded women of America are able to accomplish, and 
how so many of them can combine a vast deal of practical work 
with living in the midst of bustling social affairs, and themselves 
entertaining perhaps in a brilliant way. Such a woman will go 
early in the morning to the committee meeting of her club, inspect 
a school or poor-house on the way, then help to draw up by-laws 
for a society, deliver an address, preside at some other meeting, 
and meet high officials in the interests of some public work. 
She expends her energy for every new movement, keeps in touch 
with every new tendency in art and literature, and is yet a pleasant 
and comfortable mother in her own home. This youthful fresh- 
ness never succumbs to age. In Boston, the widow of the zoologist 
Agassiz, although now eighty years of age, is still tirelessly active 
as honourary president of Radcliffe College ; and Julia Ward Howe, 
the well-known poetess, in spite of her eighty-four years, presides 
at every meeting of the Boston Authors' Club, still with her quiet 
but fresh and delightful humour. 

The leadership of women which is a problem to be discussed, 
as far as public life is concerned, is an absolute dogma which 
it would be sacrilege to call in question, so far as social and 
domestic life go. Jus^: as Lincoln said that the American govern- 
ment is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the 
people," so certainly American society is a government of the 
women, by the women, and for the women. The part which the 
wife plays determines so unconditionally the social status of 
every home, that even a man who has his own social ambitions can 
accomplish his end in no better way than by doing everything to 
further the plans and even the whims of his wife. And the luxury 
in which she is maintained is so entirely a symbol of social position 
that the man comes instinctively to believe that he is himself enjoy- 
ing society when he worries and over-works in order to provide 
jewelry and funds for the elaborate entertainments of his wife. 

Just as the wife of the millionaire has her place arranged to suit 



S72 THE AMERICANS 

herself, so the modest townswoman does in her small home, and 
so also the wife of the day labourer, in her still narrower surround- 
ings. The man pushes the baby carriage, builds the kitchen fire, 
and takes care of the furnace, so that his wife can attend to getting 
fashionable clothing; he denies himself cigars in order to send 
her into the country for the summer. And she takes this as a mat- 
ter of course. She has seen this done from her childhood by all 
men, and she would be offended if her husband were to do any- 
thing less. The American woman's spirit of self-assertion would 
be aroused directly if social equality were to be interpreted in 
such a ridiculous way as to make the man anything but the social 
inferior. 

The outward noise would make one believe that the self-asser- 
tion of the feminine soul were most energetically concerned with 
political rights; woman's suffrage is the great watchword. But 
the general noise is deceptive; the demands for equal school and 
college education for young women, for admission to industrial 
positions on the same footing with men, for an independent exist- 
ence and life career for every woman who wants it, and for social 
domination — all these are impulses which really pervade the na- 
tional consciousness. But the demand for equal suffrage is not 
nearly so universal. In the nature of things, it is often put forth 
by radical lecturers on woman's rights; and it is natural that some 
large societies support the efforts, and that even masculine logic 
should offer no objections in many cases. The familiar argu- 
ments known to all the world have hardly been augmented by a 
single new reason on the woman's side. But the old arguments 
appear on the surface to be such sound deductions from all the 
fundamental political, social, and economic principles of America 
that they come here to have new force. If in spite of this their 
practical success is still exceedingly small, and the most energetic 
opposition is not from the stronger sex but from the women them- 
selves, it shows clearly that there is some strong opposing impulse 
in the American public mind. The social self-assertion of women, 
in which every American believes with all his heart, is just as little 
likely ever to lead to universal political suffrage for women as 
American industrial self-assertion will ever lead to socialism. 

But the irony of world history has brought it about that women 
began with just those rights which to-day some of them are de- 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 573 

manding. When English law was brought across the ocean by 
the colonists in the seventeenth century, the women had the con- 
stitutional right to vote, and in exceptional cases made use of it; 
not one of the constitutions of the thirteen states limited the suf- 
frage to men. The State of New York was the first to improve or 
to injure its constitution by adding the qualification "male," in 
the year 1778. One state followed after another, and New Jersey 
was the last, in 1844. But just as the last door was closed, the 
hue and cry was raised that they all ought to be opened. The 
first woman's convention to make an urgent appeal for the restor- 
ing of these rights was held in New York in 1848. There was a 
violent opposition; but the movement extended to a great many 
states, and finally, in 1866, a national organization was formed 
which asked for a national law. This was just after the Civil 
War, when the amendment giving the suffrage to the negroes was 
the chief subject of political discussion. A petition with eighty 
thousand signatures was gotten up urging that the Constitution 
should be interpreted so as to give women the right to vote. Two 
women brought legal action, which went up through all the courts 
to the Supreme Court, but was there decided against the women, 
and therefore the sex has not the sufi^rage. 

No national movements have, therefore, to-day any practical 
significance unless three-quarters of all state legislatures can be 
induced to vote for an amendment to the Constitution in favour 
of woman's suffrage — that is, to vote that no state be allowed to 
exclude women from the ballot. This is hardly more likely to 
happen than a Constitutional amendment to introduce hereditary 
monarchy. Meanwhile, the agitation in the various states has by 
no means entirely stopped. Time after time attempts have been 
made to alter the constitution of a single state, but unsuccessfully. 
The only states to introduce complete woman's suffrage have been 
Wyoming in 1869, Colorado in 1893, and Utah in 1895. Kansas 
allows women to vote in municipal elections. The agitation has 
been really successful in only one direction; it has succeeded in 
getting from a majority of the states the right to vote for the local 
school committees. 

Such experience as the country has had with woman's suffrage 
has not been specially favourable to the movement. A good deal 
goes to show that, even if full privileges were granted, they would 



S74 ^HE AMERICANS 

remain a dead letter for the overwhelming majority of women. 
The average woman does not wish to go into politics. It has been 
affirmed that in the modern way of living, with servants to do all 
the house-work, factories to do the spinning and weaving and every 
sort of economic convenience, the married woman has too little 
to do, and needs the political field in which to give her energies 
free play. But so long as statistics show that four-fifths of the 
married women in the country do all their house-work, and so 
long as such a great variety of ethical, intellectual, aesthetic and 
social duties lie before every woman, it is no wonder that very 
few are eager to take on new responsibilities at the ballot-box. 
Those, however, who would make most use of the suffrage would 
be, as the women who oppose the movement say, the worst fe- 
male element of the large cities, and they would bring in all the 
worst evils of a low class of voters led by demagogues. Political 
corruption at the ballot would receive a new and specially dan- 
gerous impetus; the political machines would win new and dis- 
gusting strength from the feebleness of these women to resist 
political pressure, and instead of women's ennobling and refining 
political ethics, as their partisans hope, they would be more apt 
to drag politics down to the very depths. Those who oppose the 
movement see a decided prejudice to political soundness even in 
the mere numerical doubling of the voting class. 

Most of all, the conservative element can assert, with an excellent 
array of facts, that the healthy progress of woman's self-assertion 
best proceeds by keeping away from politics and turning directly 
toward the improvement of the conditions of living and of in- 
struction, toward the opening up of professions, the framing of 
industrial laws, and- other reforms. The radical political de- 
mands of women in all other fields, and most especially in the 
socialistic direction, inclining as they naturally do to be extreme, 
have worked rather to hinder than to aid the social progress 
of women. Even where the social independence of women is 
properly contested, there works the deterring consideration that 
politics might bring about differences between husband and wife. 
Taken all in all, the self-assertion of women in political matters 
is hardly a practical question. One who looks into their tracts 
and propaganda feels for a long while that the last one he has 
read, on which ever side it is, is wrong; but when he has come to 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 575 

a point where he meets only the old arguments revamped, he 
feels that on the whole the radical side has still less justice than 
the other. And the nation has come to the same conclusion. We 
may thus leave politics quite out of account in turning finally to 
the main question which relates to women; this is, How has this 
remarkable self-assertion of woman affected the life of the nation, 
both on the whole and in special spheres ^ 

Let us look first at the sphere of the family. The situation here 
is often decidedly misinterpreted; the frequent divorces in America 
are cited very often in order to put American family life in an 
unfavourable light. According to the census report of 1900, the 
ratio of divorced to married men was 0.6 per cent., and of women 
0.8 per cent.; while in 1890 the respective figures were only 0.4 
per cent, and 0.6 per cent. Nevertheless, the total number of 
divorced persons is only 0.3 per cent, of the whole population, as 
compared with 5.1 per cent, who are widows, 36.5 per cent, who are 
married, and 57.9 per cent, of bachelors — with a small remainder 
unaccounted for. It is true that divorced persons who have re- 
married are here included among the married persons; but even 
if the number of dissolved marriages is somewhat greater than it 
appears in the statistics, that fact shows nothing as to the moral 
status of marriage in America. 

Anybody familiar with the country knows that, much more often 
than in Europe, the real grounds which lead to divorce — not the 
mere legal pretexts given — are highly ethical ones. We have 
hinted at this when we analyzed the religious life; the main reason 
is the ethical objection to continuing externally in a marriage 
which has ceased to be spiritually congenial. It is the women 
especially, and generally the very best women, who prefer to take 
the step, with all the hardships which it involves, to prolonging a 
marriage which is spiritually hypocritical and immoral. Infidel- 
ity of the woman is the ground of divorce in only a vanishingly 
small number of cases, and the sexual purity of marriage is on a 
high plane throughout the people. The pure atmosphere of this 
somewhat unemotional people, which makes it possible for any 
woman to wend her way without escort through the streets of a 
large city in the evening and to travel alone across the Continent, 
and which protects the girl on the street from being stared at or 
rudely accosted, protects even more the married woman. Al- 



576 THE AMERICANS 

though French society dramas are presented on the American 
stage, one feels from the general attitude of the pubHc that it 
really fails to understand the psychology of what is being per- 
formed, because all the ethical presuppositions are so entirely 
different. What the Parisian finds piquant, the New Englander 
finds shameless; and the woman over whom the Frenchman smiles 
disgusts the American. 

And in still another sense American marriage is purer then the 
European; it lacks the commercial element. As characteristic as 
this fact is in economic life, it is even more significant in social 
life. This does not mean that the man who pays court to 
the daughter of a millionaire is entirely unconscious of the 
economic advantages which such a marriage would bring. 
But the systematic searching around for a dowry, with some 
woman attached to it, is unknown in the New World, and is thor- 
oughly un-American. This may be seen in American plays; the 
familiar German comedies, in which the search for a rich bride is 
a favourite motive, strike the American public as entirely vapid 
and humourless. Americans either do not understand or else 
look down with pity on the marital depravity of the Old World, 
and such stage scenes are as intrinsically foreign as those others, 
so familiar to Europe, in which the rich young nobleman who after 
all marries the poor governess, is held up as a remarkable example 
of magnanimity. 

The purely human elements are the only ones which count in 
marriage. It is a congenial affiliation of two persons, without 
regard to social advantage or disadvantage, if only the persons care 
for each other. And this idea is common to the whole nation, and 
gives marriage a high moral status. Moreover, the surpassing edu- 
cation of the young American woman, her college life, works in 
one way to exalt marriage. If she has learned anything in her 
college atmosphere, it is moral seriousness. She has gone there to 
face duties squarely and energetically, to account small things 
small, and large things large; and so, when she approaches the new 
duty of making a home, she overcomes all obstacles there with pro- 
found moral determination. 

In spite of this, one may ask. Is her development in the right 
direction for subsequent events .? While so much has contributed 
to the exaltation and purity of her marriage, has she not learned a 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 577 

great deal else which tends rather indirectly and perhaps unnotice- 
ably to disorganize marriage, the home, the family, and the peo- 
ple ? Is the increasing social self-assertion of woman really in the 
interests of culture ? Let us picture to ourselves the contrast, say 
with Germany. There too the interests in the social advance of 
women is lively on all sides; but the situation is wholly different. 
Four main tendencies may be easily picked out. One relates to a 
very small number of exceptional women who have shown great 
talent or perhaps real genius. Such women are to be emancipated 
and to have their own life career. But the few who are called to do 
great things in art or science or otherwise, are not very apt to wait 
for others to emancipate them, and the number of these women is 
so small that this movement has hardly any social or economic 
importance in comparison with the other three which concern 
large numbers of women. 

Of these other three, the first concerns the women of the lower 
classes, who throughout Germany are so poor that they have to 
earn a livelihood, and are in danger of sacrificing their family life. 
The lever is applied to improve their social condition, to put legal 
limits to the labour of women, and to protect them, so that the poor 
man's wife shall have more opportunities in the family. Another 
movement is to benefit the daughters of more well-to-do people, to 
give them when they marry, a more intellectual career, to elevate 
the wife through a broader education above the pettiness of purely 
domestic interests and the superficiality of ordinary social life, 
and so to make her the true comrade of her husband. And the 
last movement concerns those millions of women who cannot marry 
because women are not only the more numerous, but also because 
one-tenth of German men will not marry. They are urged to 
replace the advantages which they would have in marriage by 
a life occupation; and although women of the lower classes have 
had enough opportunity to work, those of the upper classes have 
until recently been excluded from any such blessing. A great 
deal has been done here to improve the situation and partly in 
direct imitation of the American example. 

But the real background of all these movements in Germany 
has been the conviction that marriage is the natural destiny of 
woman. The aim has been to improve marriage in the lov^er 
classes by relieving the woman of degrading labour, in upper 



578 THE AMERICANS 

classes by giving the woman a superior education; and the other 
two movements are merely expedients to supply some sort of 
substitute for life's profoundest blessing, which is found only in 
marriage. There is no such background in America; there is a 
desire to protect American marriage, but it is not presupposed that 
marriage is, in and of itself, the highest good for woman. The 
completion of woman's destiny lies rather in giving to her as to the 
man an intrinsically high life content whether she is married or 
not married; it is a question of her individual existence, as of his. 
Marriage is thus not the centre, and an independent career is in 
no sense a compensation or a makeshift; even the betterment of 
marriage is only intended as a means of bettering the individual. 
Woman is on exactly the same footing as man. The fundamental 
German principle that woman's destiny is found in marriage, 
while the man is married only incidentally, involves at once the 
inequality of the sexes; and this fundamental inequality is only 
slightly lessened by these four new German movements. It is a 
secondary consequence that the woman is growing to be more 
nearly like the man. But according to the American point of 
view, her fundamental equality is the foundation principle; both 
alike aim to expand their individual personalities, to have their 
own valuable life content, and by marriage to benefit each other. 
And only secondarily, after marriage is accomplished, does the 
consequence appear that necessarily the woman has her special 
duties and her corresponding special rights; and then the principle 
of equality between the two finds its limitations. Now when this 
takes place, the self-assertion of the American woman is found to 
be not wholly favourable to the institution of marriage; it gives the 
married woman a more interesting life content, but it inclines the 
unmarried woman much less toward marriage; it robs society of 
that great support of marriage — the feeling that it is woman's 
destiny. 

Here, again, the most diverse factors work together. The 
social freedom of communication between men and women, the 
secure propriety of associating with men, and the independent 
freedom to go about which is peculiar to the American girl's edu- 
cation give to the unmarried girl all those rights and advantages 
which in Europe she does not have until she is married. The 
American girl has really nothing but duties to face, domestic cares 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN S79 

and perhaps quite unaccustomed burdens, in case she marries a 
man in limited circumstances; externally she has nothing to gain, 
and internally she is little disturbed by any great passion. She 
flirts from her youth up, and is the incomparable mistress of this 
little social art; but the moving passion is apt to be neglected, and 
one may question whether all her mischievous roguery and grace- 
ful coquetry are anything more than a social accomplishment, 
like dancing or skating or playing golf — whether it in any way 
touches the heart. ' It is a diversion, and not a true life content. 

Then, too, the gir^has a feeling of intellectual superiority which 
for the most part is entirely justified. The European girl has 
been brought up to believe in the superiority of the man, accus- 
tomed to feel that her own gifts are incomplete, that they come to 
have real value only in conjunction with a man, and her inferior 
scientific training suggests to her unconsciously that she will be in- 
tellectually exalted when she allies herself to some man. That 
will fill out her intellectual personality. The American girl has 
hardly ever such an idea; she has learned in the school-room how 
foolish boys are, how lazy and careless, and then, too, she has con- 
tinued her own education it may be years after the men of her 
acquaintance have gone into practical life. Many high schools 
have one-third of their pupils boys and two-thirds girls, and the 
ratio grows in favour of the girls. Moreover, everything tends to 
give the girl her own aspirations and plans independent of any man 
— aspirations which are not essentially furthered or completed by 
her marriage alliance. American women often laugh at the way in 
which German women introduce abstract questions at the Kaffee- 
klatsch: "Now my husband says — ." The intellectual personality 
of the American girl must develop so much the more independ- 
ently of male influence as the distinction which commences in 
school years is even more actual in the years of maturity. The older 
the American man grows the more he concentrates himself on 
business or politics, while his wife in a certain way continues her 
schooling, devotes her entire time to every sort of intellectual stimu- 
lation; the wife reads books, while the husband reads newspapers. 
It is undeniable that in the average American home the woman 
makes the profounder intellectual impression on every visitor, 
and the number of women is continually growing who instinctively 
feel that there is no advantage in marrying a man who is intellectu- 



58o THE AMERICANS 

ally an inferior; they would rather remain single than contract a 
marriage in which they have to be the intellectual head. 

While, therefore, there are neither novel social advantages nor 
any emotional urgency, nor yet intellectual inducements, to per- 
suade women to marry, there are other circumstances which urge 
her strongly not to do so. In the first place, marriage may inter- 
fere directly with the life career which she has planned for herself. 
A woman who has taken an occupation to save herself from misery 
looks on marriage with a man who earns enough to support 
a family as a sort of salvation; while the woman who has chosen 
some calling because her life means so much more if it is useful to 
the world, who is earnestly devoted to her work, truly ambitious 
and thoroughly competent, ponders a long time before she goes 
into a marriage which necessarily puts an end to all this. She 
may well prefer to sacrifice some sentimental inclination to the 
profound interest she feels in her work. 

The American girl is, moreover, not fond of domestic cares. 
It would not be fair to say that she is a bad house-keeper, for the 
number of wives who have to get along without servants is much 
greater than in Germany. And even in spite of the various 
economic advantages which she enjoys, it is undeniable that the 
American woman takes her home duties seriously, looks after 
every detail, and keeps the whole matter well in hand. But never- 
theless, she feels very differently toward her capacities along this 
line. The German woman feels that her household is a source of 
joy; the American woman, that it is a necessary evil. The Ameri- 
can woman loves to adorn her home and tries to express in it her 
own personality, not less than her German sister; but everything 
beyond this — the mere technique of house-keeping, cleaning, pur- 
chasing, repairing, and hiring servants — she feels to be, after all, 
somewhat degrading. The young woman who has been to col- 
lege attacks her household duties seriously and conscientiously, 
but with the feeling that she would rather sacrifice herself by nurs- 
ing the suffering patients in a hospital. The perfect economic 
appliances for American house-keeping save a great deal of labour 
which the German wife has to perform, and perhaps just on that 
account the American woman feels that the rest of it is vexatious 
work which women have to do until some new machines can be 
devised to take their places. This disinclination to household 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 581 

drudgery pervades the whole nation, and it is only the older gener- 
ations in country districts that take a pride in their immaculate 
house-keeping, while the younger generations even there have the 
tendency to shirk household work. The daughters of farmers 
would rather work in a factory, because it is so much more stimu- 
lating and lively, than ironing or washing dishes or tending baby 
brother and sister at home; for the same reason, they will not 
become domestic servants for any one else. And so, for the 
upper and the lower classes, the disinclination to house-work 
stands very much in the way of marriage. 

This disinclination affects marriage in still another way. Fam- 
ilies are tending more and more to give up separate houses and live 
in family hotels, or, if more modestly circumstanced, in boarding- 
houses. The expense of servants has something to do with this, 
but the more important factor is the saving of work for the wife. 
The necessary consequence is the dissolution of intimate family 
life. When a dozen families eat year in and year out in the same 
dining-room, the close relations which should prevail in the family 
take on a very different shading. And thus it is that the intellectual 
self-assertion of women works, in the most diverse ways, against 
the formation of marriages and against family life. There is one 
argument, however, which is always urged by the opponents of 
woman's emancipation which is not valid — at least, not for 
America. It is the blue-stocking bugbear. This unattractive type 
of woman is not produced by higher education in America. Many 
a young American girl, who has arrived at years of personal 
independence during her college life, may have lost her interest in 
the average sort of marriage; but she has by no means lost the 
attraction she exerts on men. 

The tendency of woman's self-assertion against marriage appears 
to go even further; the exaggerated expression, " race suicide, " has 
sometimes been used. It is true that the increase of native popu- 
lation, especially in the more civilized parts of the country, is omi- 
nously small; this is probably the result of diverse factors. There 
are physicians, for instance, who claim that the intellectual training 
of women and the nervous excitement incident to their independ- 
ent, self-reliant attitude are among the main causes; but more 
important, others say, are the voluntary precautions which are dic- 
tated by the desire of ease and comfort. This last is a serious 



582 THE AMERICANS 

factor, and there lies behind it again the spirit of self-assertion; 
the woman wants to live out her own life, and her individual- 
istic instinct works against the large family. But there is nothing 
here which threatens the whole nation; since, even aside from 
the very large immigration which introduces healthy, proHfic, 
and sturdy elements, the births of the whole country exceed those 
of almost any of the European nations. In Germany, between 1890 
and 1900, for every thousand inhabitants the births numbered an- 
nually 36.2 and the deaths 22.5 — so that there were 13.7 more 
births; in England the births were 30. t and deaths 18.4, with a 
difference of 11. 7; in the United States the births were 35.1 and 
deaths 17.4, with a difference of 17.7 more births. 

Of course, these figures would make all anxiety seem ridiculous, 
if the proportions were equally distributed over the country, and 
through all the elements of the population. As a matter of fact, 
however, there are the greatest differences. In Massachusetts, for 
instance, we may distinguish three classes of population; those 
white persons whose parents were born in the country, and those 
whose parents were foreigners, and the blacks. This negro popu- 
lation of Massachusetts has the same birth and death rate as the 
negro elsewhere; for every thousand persons there are 17.4 more 
births than deaths. For the second class — that is, the families of 
foreign parentage — there are actually 45.6 more births than deaths; 
while in the white families of native parentage there are only 3.8. 
In some other North Atlantic States, the condition is still worse; in 
New Hampshire, for instance, the excess of births in families of 
foreign parentage is 58.5, while in those of native parentage the 
situation is actually reversed, and there are 10.4 more deaths than 
births. So it happens that for all the New England States, the 
native white population, in the narrower sense, has a death pre- 
ponderance of 1.5 for every tho"<Jand inhabitants ; so that, in the in- 
tellectually superior part of the rountry, the strictly native popula- 
tion is not maintaining itself. 

Interesting statistics recently gathered at Harvard University 
show that its graduates are also not holding their own. Out 
of 881 students who were graduated more than twenty-five 
years ago, 634 are married, and they have 1,262 children. 
On the probable assumption that they will have no more 
children, and that these are half males, we find that 881 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN s^3 

student graduates in 1877 leave in 1902 only 631 sons. The 
climatic conditions cannot be blamed for this, since the sur- 
plus of births in families born of foreign parents is not only very 
great, but is far greater than in any of the European countries 
from which these immigrant parents came. Of European coun- 
tries, Hungary has the greatest excess of births — namely, 40.5, as 
compared with 13.7 in Germany. That population of America 
which comes from German, Irish, Swedish, French, and Italian 
parentage has, even in New England, a birth surplus of 44.5. The 
general conditions of the country seem, therefore, favourable to 
fecundity, and this casts a greater suspicion on social conditions 
and ideals. And the circumstance must not be overlooked, that the 
increased pressure of women into wage-earning occupations lessens 
the opportunities of the men, and so contributes indirectly to pre- 
vent the man from starting his home early in life. In short, from 
whatever side we look at it, the self-assertion of woman exalts her 
at the expense of the family — perfects the individual, but injures 
society; makes the American woman perhaps the finest flower of 
civilization, but awakens at the same time serious fears for the 
propagation of the American race. 

There are threatening clouds in other quarters of the horizon. 
The much-discussed retroactive effect of feminine emancipation 
on the family should not distract attention from its effect on cul- 
ture as a whole. Here the dissimilarity to the German conditions 
is obvious. The German woman's movement aims to give the 
woman a most significant role in general matters of culture, but 
still does not doubt, as a matter of course, that the general trend of 
culture will be determined by the men. Just as it is a dogmatic 
presupposition in Germany that marriage is the most desirable 
occupation for women, so it is tacitly presupposed that intellectual 
culture will take its actual stamp from the men. In America not 
only this view of marriage, but even this view of culture, has been 
opposed for a long time; and the people behave as if both were 
antiquated and superstitious notions, devised by the stronger sex 
for its own convenience, and as if their reversal would benefit the 
entire race. 

Anybody who looks the matter squarely in the face is not left to 
doubt that everything in America is tending not only to sacrifice the 
superiority of man and to give the woman an equal position, but to 



384 THE AMERICANS 

reverse the old situation and make her very much the superior. In 
business, law, and politics, the American man is still sovereign, and 
in spite of the many women who press into the mercantile profes- 
sions he is still in a position where he serves rather than directs. 
And it is very characteristic of the moral purity of the people that, 
in spite of the incomparable social power of women, they have not 
a trace of personal influence on important political events. On 
the other hand, they dictate in matters of education, religion, 
literature and art, social problems, and public morals. Painting, 
music, and the theatre cater to woman, and for her the city is 
beautified and purified; although she does not do it herself, it is 
her taste and feeling which decide everything; she determines 
public opinion, and distributes all the rewards at her good pleas- 
ure. If the family problem is shown in a lurid light by the 
decrease of births in the native New England population, the 
problem of culture comes out into broad daylight only in those 
figures which we have seen before; the 327,614 women teachers 
and the 111,710 men. 

Thus three-quarters of American education is administered by 
women; and even in the high school where the boys go till they are 
eighteen or nineteen years old, 57.7 per cent, of the teachers are 
women; and in those normal schools where both men and women 
go to fit themselves for teaching, 7 1 .3 per cent, of the instructors are 
women. It appears, then, that the young men of the country, even 
in the years when boyhood ripens to youth, receive the larger part 
of their intellectual impetus from women teachers, and that all of 
those who are going to be school teachers and shape the young souls 
of the nation are in their turn predominantly under the influence 
of women. In colleges and universities this is still not the case, but 
soon will be if things are not changed; the great number of young 
women who pass their doctorial examinations and become special- 
ists in science will have more and more to seek university pro- 
fessorships, or else they will have studied in vain. And here, as 
in the school, the economic conditions strongly favour the woman; 
since she has no family to support, she can accept a position on 
a salary so much smaller that the man is more and more crowded 
from the field. And it may be clearly foreseen that, if other social 
factors do not change, women will enter as competitors in every 
field where the labour does not require specifically mascuHne 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 585 

strength. So it has been in the factories; so it is in the schools; 
and so, in a few decades, it may be in the universities and in the 
churches. 

Even although the professorial chairs still belong for the most 
part to men, the presence of numerous women in the auditorium 
cannot be wholly without influence on the routine of work. The 
lecturer is forced to notice, as is the speaker in any public gather- 
ing, that at least two-thirds of his hearers present the cheerful 
aspect of gay millinery and lace collar, so that intellectual culture 
and public opinion on non-political questions come more and more 
to be dominated by women — as many persons are beginning to see. 
Most of them greet this unique turn in human history as the pecu- 
liar advantage of this nation; the man looks after the industry and 
politics, and the woman after moral, religious, artistic, and intel- 
lectual matters. If there is any doubt that she is competent to do 
this, most Americans are satisfied to observe the earnestness and 
conscientiousness with which the American woman attends to her 
duties, at the zeal and success with which she applies herself to her 
studies, and at her victory over men wherever she competes. 

Here and there, however, and their number is increasing every 
day, men are feeling that earnestness is not necessarily power, zeal 
is not mastery, and that success means little if the judgment is pro- 
nounced by those who are partial to the winners. The triumph 
in industrial competition is no honour if it consists in bidding under 
the market price. In fact, it is not merely a question of the divi- 
sion of labour, but a fundamental change in the character of the 
labour. An impartial observer of the achievements of American 
women as teachers or as university students, in professional life or 
social reform or any other public capacity, is forced to admire the 
performance, and even to recognize certain unique merits; but he 
has to admit that it is a special sort of work, and different from the 
achievements of men. The emancipation of the American woman 
and her higher education, although carried almost to the last ex- 
treme, give not the slightest indication even yet that woman is able 
to accomplish in the intellectual field the same that man accom- 
plishes. What she does is not inferior, but it is entirely different; 
and the work which, in all other civilized countries, is done by men 
cannot in the United States be slipped into the hands of women 
without being profoundly altered in character. 



586 THE AMERICANS 

The feminine mind has the tendency to unify all ideas, while a 
man rather separates independent classes. Each of these posi- 
tions has advantages and drawbacks. The immediate products 
of the feminine temperament are tactfulness and aesthetic insight, 
sure instincts, enthusiasm, and purity; and, on the other hand, 
a lack of logical consecutiveness, a tendency to over-hasty gen- 
eralization, under-estimation of the abstract and the deep, and 
an inclination to be governed by feeling and emotion. Even 
these weaknesses may be beautiful in domestic life and attractive 
in the social sphere; they soften the hard and bitter life of men. 
But women have not the force to perform those public duties 
of civilization which need the harder logic of man. If the entire 
culture of the nation is womanized, it will be in the end weak and 
without decisive influence on the progress of the world. 

The intellectual high life in colleges and universities, which 
seems to speak more clearly for the intellectual equality of women, 
brings out exactly this difference. That which is accomplished 
by the best women's colleges is exemplary and admirable; but it is 
in a world which is, after all, a small artificial world, with all rough 
places smoothed over and illumined with a soft light instead of the 
hard daylight. Although in the mixed universities women often 
do better than men, it is not to be forgotten that the American 
lecture system, with its many examinations, puts a higher value on 
industry, attention, and good-will than on critical acumen or logi- 
cal creativeness. It cannot be denied that, even a short time 
since, the American university cultivated in every department the 
spirit of learning rather than of investigation — was reproductive 
rather than productive — and that the more recent development 
which has laid the emphasis on productive investigation has gone 
on for the most part in the leading Eastern universities, such as 
Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Yale, and Princeton, where 
women are still not admitted, while the Western universities, and 
most of all the state universities, which are found only in the 
West, where women are in a majority, belong in many respects 
to the old type. To be sure, there are several American women 
whose scientific work is admirable, and to be classed with the 
best professional achievements of the country; but they are still 
rare exceptions. The tendency to learn rather than to produce 
pervades all the great masses of women; they study with extra- 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 587 

ordinary zeal up to the point where critical production should 
begin, and there they are all too apt to stop. And unless one per- 
sistently looks at the very few exceptions, one would hardly assert 
that the true spirit of science could unfold and grow if American 
women were to be its only guardians. 

This distinction is much plainer in the lower walks of life. The 
half-educated American man refrains from judging what is be- 
yond his scope; but an American woman who has scarcely a shred 
of education looks in vain for any subject on which she has not firm 
convictions already at hand, and her influence upon public opin- 
ion — politics always apart — spins a web of triviality and mis- 
conception over the whole culture. Cobwebs are not ropes, and 
a good broom can sweep them down; but the arrogance of this 
feminine lack of knowledge is the symptom of a profound trait in 
the feminine soul, and points to dangers springing from the domi- 
nation of women in intellectual life. In no other civilized land is 
scientific medicine so systematically hindered by quack doctors, 
patent medicines, and mental healing; the armies of uneducated 
women protect them. And in no other civilized land are ethi- 
cal conceptions so worm-eaten by superstitions and spiritualistic 
hocus-pocus; hysterical women carry the day. In no other coun- 
try is the steady and sound advance of social and pedagogical re- 
form so checked by whimsies and short-lived innovations, and 
good sound work held back by the partisans of confused ideas; 
here the women work havoc with their social and pedagog- 
ical alarms. 

This does not mean, however, that a good deal of the work of 
American women is not better done by them than it would be by 
the men. In the first place, there is no doubt that the assistance 
of women in teaching has had very happy results on American cul- 
ture. When it was necessary to tame the wild West of its pio- 
neer roughness and to introduce good manners, the milder influ- 
ence of women in the school-room was far more useful than that 
of men could have been; and so far as it is a question of making 
over the immigrant children of the large cities into young Ameri- 
cans, the patient woman teacher is invaluable. And the drama 
of the school-room is played in other more public places; in a 
thousand ways the participation of women in public life has re- 
fined and toned down American culture and enriched and beauti- 



S88 THE AMERICANS 

fied it, but not made it profounder or stronger. Woman's inborn 
dilettanteism works too often for superficiality rather than pro- 
fundity. 

And it is indubitable that this undertaking of the burdens of 
intellectual culture by woman has been necessary to the nation's 
progress — a kind of division of labour imperatively indicated by the 
tremendous economic and political duties which have precocupied 
the men. No European country has ever had to accomplish eco- 
nomically, technically, and politically, in so short a time, that which 
the United States has accomplished in the last fifty years in per- 
fecting its civilization. The strength of the men has been so thor- 
oughly enlisted that intellectual culture could not have been de- 
veloped or even maintained if the zeal and earnestness of women 
had not for a time taken up the work. But is this to be only for a 
time .'* Will the man bethink himself that his political and eco- 
nomic one-sidedness will in the end hurt the nation .? This is one of 
the greatest questions for the future of this country. It is not a 
question of woman's retrograding or losing any of her splendid 
acquirements; no one could wish that this fine intellectuality, this 
womanly seriousness, this desire for a meaning in her life should 
be thoughtlessly sacrificed, nor that the sisters and the mothers of 
the nation should ever become mere dolls or domestic machines. 
Nothing of this should be lost or needs to be lost. But a compen- 
satory movement must be undertaken by the men of the country 
in order to make up for amateurish superficiality and an inconse- 
quential logic of the emotions. 

In itself, the intellectual domination of the women will have the 
tendency to strengthen itself, the more the higher life bears the 
feminine stamp. For by so much, men are less attracted to it. 
Thus the number of male school teachers becomes smaller all the 
time, because the majority of women teachers makes the school 
more and more a place where a man does not feel at home. But 
other factors in public opinion work strongly in the opposite 
direction; industrial life has made its great strides, the land is 
opened up, the devastations of the Civil War are repaired, inter- 
nal disturbances have yielded to internal unity, recognition among 
the world powers has been won, and within a short time the wealth 
of the country has increased many fold. It will be a natural 
reaction if the energies of men are somewhat withdrawn from 



SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN s^9 

industry and agriculture, from politics and war, and once more be- 
stowed on things intellectual. The strength of this reaction will 
decide whether the self-assertion of the American women will, in 
the end, have been an unalloyed blessing to the country or an 
affliction. Woman will never contribute momentously to the cul- 
ture of the world by remaining intellectually celibate. 



CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 

Aristocratic Tendencies 

IN the caricatures of the American which are so gladly drawn 
by the European, and so innocently believed in, there is gen- 
erally, beside the shirt-sleeved clown who bawls "equality" 
and the barbarian who chases the dollar, the rich heiress bent 
on swapping her millions for a coronet. The longing for bankrupt 
suitors of undoubted pedigree is supposed to be the one symp- 
tom of any social aspiration, which the Yankee exhibits. The 
American begs leave to differ. He is not surprised that the young 
American woman of good family, with her fine intellectual fresh- 
ness and her faculty of adaptation, should be sought out by 
men of all nations; nor is he filled with awe if there are some 
suitors of historic lineage among the rest. But the day is long 
gone in which such marriages are looked on as an enviable piece of 
good fortune for the daughter of any American citizen. Even the 
newspapers lightly smile at such marriages to a title, and they 
are becoming less and less frequent in the really best circles of 
American society. Besides, no such cheap and superficial aspira- 
tions are really indicative of aristocratic tendencies. The Ameri- 
can is, by principle, very far from making his way into the inter- 
national aristocracy of Europe, and he neither does nor will he ever 
attempt any artificial imitation of aristocratic institutions. 

It is a capital mistake to suppose that the American, put face to 
face with European princedom, forgets or tries to hide his democ- 
racy. Aristocratic institutions, particularly those of England, in- 
terest him as a bit out of history; he seeks such social contact just 
as he wanders through quaint castles, without wishing thereby to 
transfer his own country house on the Hudson into a decaying 
group of walls and turrets. He takes an aesthetic pleasure in the 
brilliancy of courts, the pomp of military life, the wealth and colour 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 591 

of symbols; and, quite independently of that, he feels indeed a 
lively interest in certain fascinating figures of European politics — 
most of all, perhaps, in the German Kaiser. But whether his inter- 
est is historical, aesthetic, or personal, it is never accompanied by 
any feeling of inferiority to the persons who represent these aristo- 
cratic institutions. When Prince Henry, on his visit to the New 
World, quickly won the hearts of Americans as a man, there was 
nothing in the tone or accent of the greetings addressed to him 
which was out of accord with the fundamental key of democracy. 
The dinner speakers commenced their speeches in the democratic 
fashion, which is always first to address the presiding host: " Mr. 
Mayor, your Royal Highness." 

At the same time the peculiarly democratic contempt for things 
monarchical is disappearing, too; the cultivated American feels in- 
creasingly that every form of state has arisen from historic condi- 
tions, and that one is not in and for itself better than another. He 
feels that he is not untrue to his republican fatherland in attesting 
his respect for crowned heads. He shows most of all his respect, 
because it is just the friendly, neighbourly intercourse which makes 
possible a relation of mutual recognition. Democracy is itself the 
gainer by giving up the absurd pose of looking down on aristocracy. 
Thus it happens that, of recent years, even native-born Americans 
have sometimes received European orders. They know well 
enough that it will not do to wear the button-hole decoration on 
American soil, but they feel it to be ungracious to decline what is 
offered in a friendly spirit; unless, indeed, it is a politician who 
wishes to accentuate and propagate a certain principle. Democ- 
racy feels sure enough of itself to be able to accept a courtesy 
which is offered, with equal courtesy; but nobody supposes, for a 
moment, that European monarchical decorations have any magic 
to exalt a man above his democratic equality. Indeed, the feeling 
of entire equality, and the belief in a mutual recognition of such 
equality, are almost the presupposition of modern times, and only 
in Irish mass-meetings do we still hear protests against European 
tyranny. This much is sure: America shows not the slightest ten- 
dency to become aristocratic by imitating the historic aristocracies 
of Europe. 

There are many who seem to believe that, therefore, the only 
aristocracy of America consists in the clique of multi-millionaires 



S92 THE AMERICANS 

which holds its court in Newport and Fifth Avenue. The whole 
country observes their follies and eccentricities; their family gath- 
erings are described at length by the press, quite as any court 
ceremonies are described in European papers; and to be taken into 
this sacred circle is supposed to be the life ambition of industrious 
millionaires. Many Americans who are under the influence of 
the sensational press would probably agree with this; and, judging 
by outward symptoms, one might in fact suppose that these Croe- 
suses along the Cliff-walk at Newport were really the responsible 
social leaders of America. This must seem very contemptible to 
all who look on from a distance, for everything which the papers 
tell to the four winds of heaven about these people is an insult to 
real and sound American feeling. The fountains of perfumery, 
the dinners on horseback, the cotillons where the favours are 
sun-bursts of real gems — in short, the senseless throwing away 
of wealth in the mere interests of rivalry and without even any 
aesthetic compensations, cannot profoundly impress a nation of 
pioneers. 

On looking more closely, one sees that the facts are not so bad, 
and that the penny-a-liners rather than the multi-millionaires are 
responsible for such sensational versions. In fact, in spite of 
many extravagances, there is a great deal of taste and refinement 
in those very circles; much good sense, an appreciation of true art, 
honest pleasure in sport, especially if it is on a grand scale; pol- 
ished address, accomplished elegance in costume, and at table a 
hospitality which proudly represents a rich country. In the 
matter of style and address, these people are in fact leaders, and 
deserve to be. Their society, it is true, is less interesting than 
that of many very much more modest circles; but the same is true 
throughout the world of those people who make pleasure their 
sole duty in life. Their ostentatious enjoyments display much 
less individuality, and are more along prescribed lines, than 
those of European circles which live in a comparable luxury — a 
fact which is due largely to the universal uniformity of fashion 
that prevails in every class of Americans, and that is too little 
tolerant of individual picturesqueness. In spite of all this, neither 
diplomatic Washington, nor intellectual Boston, nor hospitable 
Baltimore, nor conservative Philadelphia, nor indomitable 
Chicago, nor cosmopolitan San Francisco, can point to any col- 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 593 

lection of persons which, in that world where one is to be amused 
expensively at any cost, is better qualified to take the lead than 
just the Four Hundred of New York and Newport. 

And yet there is a fundamental error in the whole calculation. 
It is simply not true that these circles exercise any sort of leader- 
ship for the nation, or have become the starting-point of a New 
World aristocracy. The average American, if he is still the true 
Puritan, is outraged on reading of a wedding ceremony where 
more money is spent on decorating the church than the combined 
yearly salaries of thirty school teachers, or of the sons of great 
industrial leaders wasting their days in drinking cocktails and 
racing their automobiles. If, on the other hand, he is a true city- 
bred man, he takes a considerable pleasure in reading in the news- 
paper about the design and equipment of the latest yacht, the 
decorations in the ball-room of the recently built palace, or about 
the latest divorce doings in those elect circles. The two sorts of 
readers — that is, the vexed and the amused — agree only in one 
thing; — neither of them takes all this seriously from the national 
point of view. The one is outraged that in his large, healthy, and 
hard-working country, such folderol and licentiousness are gaped 
at or tolerated. And the other is pleased that his country has be- 
come so rich and strong as to be able to afford such luxuriousness 
and extravagance; he looks on quizzically as at a vaudeville theatre, 
but even he does not take the actors in this social vaudeville the 
least bit seriously. The one accounts this clique a sort of moral 
slum, and the other a quickly passing and interesting froth; and 
both parties overestimate the eccentric whimsies and underesti- 
mate the actual constant influence of these circles in improving 
the taste for art and in really refining manners. But this clique 
is accounted a real aristocracy merely by itself and by the trades- 
men who purvey to it. 

In spite of this, American society is beginning to show important 
differentiations. It is not a mere sentimental and fanciful aris- 
tocracy, trying to imitate European monarchicalism, and it is not 
the pseudo-aristocracy dancing around the golden dinner-set; 
it is an aristocracy of leading groups of people, which has risen 
slowly in the social life of the nation, and now affords the starting- 
point of a steadily increasing individuation of social layers. The 
influence of wealth is not absent here, but it is not mere wealth 



594- "^HE AMERICANS 

as such which exalts these people to the nobihty; nor is the histori- 
cal principle of family inheritance left out of account, although 
it is not merely the number of one's identifiable ancestors 
that counts. It is, most of all, the profounder marks of edu- 
cation and of personal talent. And out of the combination of all 
these factors and their interpenetration proceed a New World 
group of leaders, which has in fact a national significance. 

If one were to name a single person who should typically repre- 
sent this new aristocracy, it would be Theodore Roosevelt. In 
the year 1649, Claes Roosevelt settled in New Netherlands, which 
is now New York, and from generation to generation his sturdy 
descendants have worked for the public good. James Roosevelt, 
the great-grandfather of the President, gave his services without 
remuneration to the Continental Army in the war for independ- 
ence; the grandfather left the largest part of his fortune to chari- 
table purposes; and the father was tirelessly active in furthering 
patriotic undertakings during the Civil War. And as this family 
inherited its public spirit, so also it inherited substance and a 
taste for sport and social life. 

Now this product of old family traditions has been greatly in- 
fluenced by the best intellectual culture of New England. Theo- 
dore Roosevelt is distinctly a Harvard graduate; all the elements 
of his nature got new strength from the classic world of Harvard. 
The history of his nation has been his favourite study, and he 
has written historical treatises of great breadth of view. There- 
with he possesses a strong talent for administration, and has 
advanced rapidly by reason of his actual achievements. And thus 
education, public service, wealth, and family traditions have com- 
bined to make a character which exalts this man socially much 
higher than the Presidential office alone could do. McKinley was 
in some ways greater, perhaps — but in McKinley's world there 
was no third dimension of aristocratic differentiation; it was a 
flat picture, where one might not ask nor expect any diversification 
in the other dimension. Roosevelt is the first aristocrat since 
many years, to come into the White House. 

Aristocratic shadings can occur in a country that is so firmly 
grounded in democracy only when the movement goes in both 
directions, upward- and downward, and when it evolves on both 
sides. If it were a question on the one side of demanding rights 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 595 

and forcing credence in pretentious display, and on the other 
side of demanding any sort of submission from less favoured 
persons or assigning them an inferior position, the whole effort 
would be hopeless. The claim to prerogative which is supported 
by an ostentation calculated to hypnotize the vulgar and a cor- 
responding obsequiousness of the weak, can do nothing more than 
perhaps to preserve aristocracy after it has taken deep historic 
root. But such a degenerate form cannot be the first stage of 
aristocracy in a new country. When a new aristocracy is formed, 
it must boast not of prerogatives, but of duties, and the feeling of 
those not included cannot be one of inferiority, but of confidence. 
And this is the mood which is growing in America. 

Such duties are most clearly recognized by wealth, and wealth 
has perhaps contributed most to begin the aristocratic differentia- 
tion in American society; but it has not been the wealth which 
goes into extravagant display or other arrogant demonstration, 
but the wealth which works toward the civilized advance of the 
nation. However much it may contradict the prejudices of the 
Old World, wealth alone does not confer a social status in America. 
Of course, property everywhere makes independence; but so long 
as it remains merely the power to hire things done, it creates no 
social differentiation. The American does not regard a m.an with 
awe because he stands well with trades-people and stock-brokers, 
but discriminates sharply between the possessions and the pos- 
sessor. In his business life he is so accustomed to dealing with 
impersonal corporations, that the power to dispense large sums 
of money gives a man no personal dignity in his eyes. Just in the 
Western cities, where society centres about questions of money 
much more than in the East, the notion of property differentiation 
between men is developed least of all so far as it concerns social 
station. The mere circumstance that one man has speculated 
fortunately and the other unfortunately, that the real estate of 
one has appreciated and of the other deteriorated in value, occa- 
sions no belief in the inner difference of the two men; the changes 
are purely economic, and suggest nothing of a social difference. 

At most there is a certain curiosity, since property opens up a 
world of possibilities to a man; and he is considerably scrutinized 
by his neighbours to see what he will do. In this sense especially 
in the small and middle-sized cities, the local magnates are the 



596 THE AMERICANS 

centre of public interest, just as the billionaires are in large cities. 
But to be the object of such newspaper curiosity does not mean to 
be elevated in the general respect. The millionaire is in this respect 
very much like the operatic tenor; or, to put it less graciously, 
the hero of the last poisoning case. It is the more a question 
of a mere stimulation to the public fancy, since in reality the 
differences are surprisingly small. 

If one looks away from the extravagant eccentricities of small 
circles, the difference in general mode of life is on the whole very 
little in evidence. The many citizens in the large American city 
who have a property of five to ten million dollars seem to live hardly 
differently from the unfortunate many who have to get on with 
only a simple million. On the other hand, the average man with a 
modest income exerts all his strength to appear in clothing and 
social habits as rich as possible. He does not take care to store 
up a dowry for his children, and he lays by little because he does 
not care to become a bond-holder; he would rather work to his 
dying day, and teach his children while they are young to stand 
on their own feet. So it happens that the differences which 
actually exist are very little in evidence; the banker has his palace 
and his coach, and his wife wears sealskin; but his shoe-maker 
has also his own house, his horse and buggy, and his wife wears 
a very good imitation of seal — which one has to rub against in 
order to recognize. 

But the situation becomes very different when it is a question 
of wealth, not as a means of actual enjoyment, but as a measure 
of the personal capacities that have earned it. Then the whole 
importance of the possession is indeed transferred to the possessor. 
We must again emphasize the fact that this is the real impulse 
underlying American economic life — wealth is the criterion of 
individual achievements, of self-initiative; and since the whole 
nation stretches every nerve in a restless demonstration of this self- 
initiative, the person who is more successful than his neighbours 
gains necessarily their instinctive admiration. The wealth won 
by lucky gambles in stocks, or inherited, or derived from a merely 
accidental appreciation of values or by a chance monopoly, is not 
respected; but the wealth amassed by caution and brilliant fore- 
sight, by indomitable energy and tireless initiative, or by fasci- 
nating originality and courage, meets with full recognition. The 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 597 

American sees in such a creator of material wealth the model of 
his pioneer virtues, the born leader of economic progress, and 
he looks up to him in sincere admiration, and respects him far 
higher than his neighbour in the next palace who has accidentally 
fallen heir to a tenfold larger sum. It is not the power which 
wealth confers, but the power which has conferred wealth, that is 
respected. 

And then there is a more important factor — the respect for 
that force of mind which puts wealth, even if it is only a modest 
amount, in the service of higher ends. Men have different tastes; 
one who builds hospitals may not understand the importance of 
patronizing the fine arts; one who supports universities may do 
very little for the church; or another who collects sculptures may 
have no interest in the education of the negro. But the funda- 
mental dogma of American society is that wealth confers dis- 
tinction only on a man who works for ideal ends; and perhaps the 
deepest impulse toward the accumulation of wealth, after the 
economic power which it confers, is the desire for just this sort 
of dignity. And this desire is deeper undoubtedly than the wish 
for pleasure, which anyhow is somewhat limited by the outward 
uniformity of American life. How far social recognition is gotten 
by public-spirited activities and how far social recognition incites 
men to such activity, is in any particular case hard to decide. But 
as a matter of fact, a social condition has come about in which the 
noblesse oblige of property is recognized on all sides, and in which 
public opinion is more discriminating as to the social respect which 
should be meted out to this or that public deed, than it could be 
if it were a question of conferring with the greatest nicety orders 
and titles of different values. 

The right of the individual to specialize in various directions, 
to focus his benefactions on Catholic deaf-mutes or on students of 
insects, on church windows, or clay cylinders with cuneiform in- 
scriptions, is recognized fully. Confident of the good-will of men 
of property, so many diverse claims have arisen, that it would be 
quite impossible for a single man out of mere general sympathy 
with civilization to lend a helping hand in all directions. The 
Americans esteem just that carefulness with which the rich man 
sees to it that his property is applied according to his personal ideas 
and knowledge. It is only thereby that his gifts have a profound 



5g8 THE AMERICANS 

personal significance, and are fundamentally distinguished from 
sentimental sacrifice or from ostentatious patronage. Giving is 
a serious matter, to which wealthy men daily and hourly devote 
conscientious labour. A man like Carnegie, whose useful bequests 
already amount to more than a hundred million dollars, could dis- 
pose at once of his entire property if he were in a single week to 
respond favourably to all the calls which are made on him. He 
receives every day hundreds of such letters of request, and gives 
almost his entire strength to carrying out his benevolent plans. 

And the same is true on a smaller scale of all classes. Every 
true American feels that his wealth puts him in a position of public 
confidence, and the intensity with which he manifests this con- 
viction decides the social esteem in which his property is held. 
The real aristocrats of wealth in this part of the world are those 
men whom public opinion respects both for the gaining and the 
using of their property; both factors, in a way, have to be united. 
The admirable personal talents which accumulate large properties, 
and the lofty ideals which put them to the best uses, may appear 
to be quite independent matters, and indeed they sometimes do 
exclude each other, but the aristocratic ideal demands the two to- 
gether. And the Americans notice when either one is absent; they 
notice when wealth is amassed in imposing quantities, but then 
employed trivially or selfishly; or, on the other hand, when it is 
employed for the very highest ends, but in the opinion of com- 
petent men has been accumulated improperly. The public feels 
more and more inclined to look into the business methods of men 
who make large gifts. The American does not recognize the non 
olet, and there have often been lively discussions when ill-gotten 
wealth has been offered in public benefaction. 

Wealth gotten by distinguished enterprise and integrity, and 
employed conscientiously and thoughtfully, confers in fact high 
social distinction. But it is only one factor among others. A 
second factor is family tradition, the dignity of a name long re- 
spected for civil high-mindedness and refinement. A European 
has only the barest impression of the great social significance of 
American genealogies, and would be surprised to see in the large 
libraries whole walls of book-shelves that contain nothing but 
works on the lineage of American families. The family tree of 
the single family of Whitney, of Connecticut, takes up three thick 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES S99 

volumes amounting to 2,700 pages; and there even exists a thick 
and handsome volume with the genealogies of American families 
of royal extraction. There are not only special papers devoted 
to the scientific study of genealogies, but even some of the large 
daily papers have a section devoted to this subject. Much of 
this is mere curiosity and sport — a fashionable whim, which col- 
lects ancestors much like coins or postage stamps. Although the 
preserving of family traditions and an expansive pride in historic 
lineage do not contradict democratic principles, yet the interest in 
pedigree, if it takes real hold on the public mind, very soon leads 
to a genuine social differentiation. 

Such differentiation will be superficial at first. If none but 
descendants of Puritans who came over in the " Mayflower " are 
invited to a set of dances, a spirit of exclusiveness is shown which 
is indeed undemocratic; but this sort of thing is in fact only a play- 
ful matter in American society. The large organizations that 
choose their membership on the ground of peculiar ancestry make 
no pretence to special privileges, and many of them are nothing 
but philanthropic societies. On the other hand, if the aristocracy 
of family were to assume special rights, it would be no innovation 
on American soil, because in the earliest colonial days many of 
the social differences of English society were brought over, and 
the English class spirit did not dispppear until after the Revolution, 
when the younger sons of English gentlemen no longer came over 
to this country. In the South, a considerable spirit of aristocracy 
persisted until after the Civil War. 

Such superficial differentiation has virtually disappeared to-day. 
The mere tinsel of family aristocracy has been torn off, but for 
this reason the real importance and achievements of certain 
families come out all the more clearly. The representatives of 
venerable family names are looked on with peculiar public con- 
fidence; and the more the American nation becomes acquainted 
with the history of these families, which have been active on Ameri- 
can soil for eight or ten generations, the more it respects their 
descendants of the present day. 

It is true that conditions are still provincial, and that almost no 
family has a national significance. The names of the first families 
of Virginia, which are universally revered in the South, are almost 
unknown in the North; the descendants of Knickerbocker families, 



6oo THE AMERICANS 

whose very name must not be mentioned in New York without 
a certain air of solemnity, are very much less considered in Balti- 
more or Philadelphia; and the western part of the country is natu- 
rally still too young to have established such traditions at all until 
recently. But the following is a typical example for the East: 

Harvard University is governed by seven men who are chosen 
to fill this responsible position, solely because the academic com- 
munity has profound confidence both in their integrity and in their 
breadth of view. And yet it is no accident that among these seven 
men, there is not one whose family has not been of service to the 
State of Massachusetts for seven generations. So that, even in 
such a model democratic community as Puritan New England, 
the names of families that have played an important public 
part in the middle of the seventeenth century are as much re- 
spected as the old "markische Adel" in Prussia. And although 
they are without the privileges of nobility, the whole dignity of 
the past is felt by every educated person to be preserved in such 
family names. 

But the most important factor in the aristocratic differentiation 
of America is higher education and culture, and this becomes 
more important every day. In speaking of universities, we have 
carefully explained why higher culture is less closely connected 
v/ith the learned professions in America than in the European 
countries. We have seen that the learned professions are fed by 
professional and very practical schools, which turn out a doctor, 
lawyer, or preacher without requiring a broad and liberal previous 
training; and how, on the other hand, the college has been the inde- 
pendent institution for higher culture, and how these two insti- 
tutions have slowly grown together in the course of time, so that 
the college course has come at length to be the regular preparation 
for those who attend professional schools. Now, in considering 
the social importance of higher individual culture, we have not to 
consider the learned professions, but rather the general college 
training; and in this respect we find undoubtedly that common 
opinion has slowly shifted toward an aristocratic point of view. 
The social importance ascribed to a college graduate is all the time 
growing. 

It was kept back for a long time by unfortunate prejudices. Be- 
cause other than intellectual forces had made the nation strong, 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 6oi 

and everywhere in the foreground of pubHc activity there were 
vigorous and influential men who had not continued their edu- 
cation beyond the pubHc grammar school, so the masses instinct- 
ively believed that insight, real energy, and enterprise were better 
developed in the school of life than in the world of books. The 
college student was thought of as a weakling, in a way, who might 
have many fine theories about things, but who would never take 
hold to help solve the great national problems — a sort of academic 
"mugwump," but not a leader. The banking-house, factory, 
farm, the mine, the law office, and the political position were all 
thought better places for the young American man than the col- 
lege lecture halls. And perhaps the unpractical character of 
college studies was no more feared than the artificial social atmos- 
phere. It was felt that an ideal atmosphere was created in the 
college to which the mind in its best period of development too 
readily adapted itself, so that it came out virtually unprepared for 
the crude reality of practical life. This has been a dogma in polit- 
ical life ever since the Presidency of Andrew Jackson, and almost 
e ]ually so in economic life. 

This has profoundly changed now, and changes more with every 
year. It is not a question of identifying the higher culture with 
the learned professions, as in Germany — there is no reason for this; 
and such a point of view has developed in Germany only by an 
accident of history. In America it is still thought that a graduate of 
one of these colleges — that is, a man who has gone about as far as 
the German student of philosophy in the third or fourth semester — 
is equal to anybody in culture, no matter whether he afterward 
becomes a manufacturer, or banker, or lawyer, or a philologian. 
The change has taken place in regard to what is expected of the 
college student; distrust has vanished, and people realize that the 
intellectual discipline which he has had until his twenty-second 
year in the artificial and ideal world is after all the best training 
for the great duties of public life, and that academic training, 
less by its subject-matter than by its methods, is the best possible 
preparation for practical activity. 

The man of academic training is the only one who sees things 
in their right perspective, and gives them the right values. Even 
the large merchant knows to-day that the young man who left 
college at twenty-two will be, when he is twenty-seven years of 



6o2 THE AMERICANS 

age^ generally ahead of his contemporaries who left school at 
seventeen and "went to work." The great self-made men do 
indeed say a good deal to comfort those who have had only a 
school training, but it may be noted that they send their own sons 
to college. As a matter of fact, the leading positions in the dis- 
posal of the nation are almost entirely in the hands of men of 
academic training, and the mistrust of the theorizing college 
spirit has given place to a situation in which university presidents 
and professors have much to say on all practical questions of public 
life, and the college graduates are the real supporters of every 
movement toward reform and civihzation. 

All in all, it can no longer be denied that a class of national 
leaders has risen above the social life of the masses, and not wholly, 
as democracy would really require, by reason of their personal 
talents. A wealthy man has a certain advantage by his wealth, 
the man of family by his lineage, the man of academic training by 
the fact that his parents were able to send him to the university. 
This is neither plutocracy nor hereditary aristocracy, nor intellec- 
tual snobbery. We have seen that wealth wins consideration only 
when well expended, that ancestry brings no privileges or prerog- 
atives with it, and that an academic education is not equivalent 
to merely technical erudition. The personal factor is not lacking, 
since we have seen that the rich man must plan his benefactions, 
the man of family must play his public part, and that academic 
training is in the reach of every young man who will try for it. 
The fundamental principles of democracy are therefore not de- 
stroyed, but they are modified. The spirit of self-assertion which 
calls for absolute equality is everywhere brought face to face with 
men who are superior, whose claims cannot be discounted, and 
who are tacitly admitted to belong rightfully to an upper class. 

Differentiation, once more, works not merely upward, but also 
downward; the public leader pushes himself ahead, and at the 
same time the great masses are looking for some one whom they 
may follow. It is not a matter of subjection, but of confidence — 
confidence in men who are recognizedly better than many others. 
There can be no doubt that a reaction is going on throughout 
America to-day, not against democracy, but against those opinions 
which have prevailed in the democracy ever since the days of the 
pioneers. A great many people feel instinctively that the time 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 603 

is ripe to oppose the one-sidedness of domination by the masses; 
people are forcibly impressed by the fact that in politics, govern- 
ment, literature and art, the great achievements are thwarted by 
vulgar influences, that the original individual is impressed into the 
ordinary mould, and that dilettanteism and mediocrity rule trium- 
phant and keep out the best talents from public life. People 
see the tyranny of greed, the reproach of municipal corruption, 
the unwholesome influence of a sensational press and of unscrupu- 
lous capital. They see how public life becomes blatant, irresponsi- 
ble, and vulgar; how all authority and respect must disappear 
if democracy is not to be curbed at any point. 

The time has come, a great many feel, in which the moral in- 
fluence of authority is needed, and the educational influence of 
those more cultivated persons who will not yield to the aesthetic 
tastes of the vulgar must be infused into the democracy. The 
trained man must speak where the masses would otherwise act 
from mere caprice; the disciplined mind must lead where incom- 
petence is heading for blind alleys; the best minds must have some 
say and people must be forced to listen, so that other voices and 
opinions shall have weight than those that make the babel of the 
streets. The eclectic must prevail over the vulgar taste, and the 
profound over the superficial, since it is clear that only in that 
way will America advance beyond her present stage of develop- 
ment. America has created a new political world, and must now 
turn to aesthetics and culture. Such a reaction has not happened 
to-day or yesterday, but has been going on steadily in the last 
few decades, and to-day it is so strong as to overcome all re- 
sistance. The desire for the beauty and dignity of culture, for 
authority and thoroughness, is creeping into every corner of 
American life. 

The time is already passing which would do away with all 
discipline and submission in school and family life; public life 
brings the trained expert everywhere into prominence. The 
disgust at the vulgarity of daily life, as in the visible appearance 
of city streets, increases rapidly. The sense of beauty is every- 
where at work; and men of taste, education, and traditions, rather 
than the city fathers who are elected by the rabble, are finally 
being called to positions of leadership. The democratic spirit is 
not crumbling, and certainly the rights of the masses are not to be 



604 "^HE AMERICANS 

displaced by the rights of the better educated and more aesthetic; 
but democracy is in a way to be perfected, to be brought as high 
as it can be brought by giving a representation to really all the 
forces that are in the social organism, and by not permitting the 
more refined ones to be suppressed by the weight of the masses. 
The nation has come to that maturity where the public is ready to 
let itself be led by the best men. 

It is true that the public taste still prevails too widely in many 
branches of social life; there is too much triviality; too many insti- 
tutions are built on the false principles that everybody knows best 
what is good for him, and too many undertakings flatter the taste 
which they should educate. But opposite tendencies are present 
everywhere. The more the economic development of the country is 
rounded off, the greater is its demand for social differentiation, for 
the recognition of certain influences as superior, for subordination, 
and for finer organization. Just as economic life has long since 
given up free competition, and the great corporations show admi- 
rably that subordination is necessary to great purposes, and the 
world of labour has become an army with strictest discipline and 
blind allegiance, so in the non-economic world a tendency toward 
subordination, individuation, and aristocracy becomes every mo- 
ment more evident. 

To this tendency there is added the new conception of the state. 
Democracy is, from the outset, individualistic. We have seen 
everywhere that the fundamental force in this community is the 
belief of every man in his own personality and that of others. The 
state has been the sum total of individuals, and the state as some- 
thing more than the individual has appeared as a bare abstraction. 
The individual alone has asserted itself, perfected and guided itself, 
and taken all the initiative. And this belief in the person is no 
less firm to-day; but another belief has come up. This is a belief 
in the ethical reality of the state. Public opinion is still afraid 
that if this belief increases, the old confidence in the value of the 
individual, and therewith of all the fundamental virtues of Ameri- 
can democracy, may be shaken. But the belief spreads from 
day to day, and produces its change in public opinion. Politics are 
trending as are so many other branches of life; the emphasis is 
passing from the individual to the totality. As we have seen that 
the Americans adorned their houses before their public buildings. 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 60s 

quite the opposite of what Europeans have done, so they have 
given political value to the millions of individuals long before they 
laid weight on the one collective will of the state. The men who 
would have sacrificed everything rather than cheat their neigh- 
bours have had no conscientious scruples in plundering the state. 

It is different to-day. The feeling grows that honour toward 
the state, sacrifice for it, and confidence in it are even more im- 
portant than the respect for the totality of individuals. These 
opinions cannot be spread abroad without having their far-reach- 
ing consequences; the state is visible only in symbols, and its 
representatives get their significance by symbolizing not the popu- 
lation, but the abstract state. The individual representative of 
government is thus exalted personally above the democratic level. 
To fill an office means not merely to do work, but to experience 
a broadening of personality, much as that which the priest feels 
in his office; it is an enlargement which demands on the other side 
respect and subordination. This tendency is still in its begin- 
nings, and will never be so strong as in Europe, because the self- 
assertion of the individual is too lively. Nevertheless, these new 
notes in the harmony are much louder and more persistent than 
they were ten years ago. 

Thus there are many forces which work to check the spirit of 
self-assertion; in spite of the liveliest feeling of equality, a social 
differentiation is practically working itself out in all American 
life. Differences of occupation are, perhaps, the least signifi- 
cant; a profession which has such a great claim to superiority as, 
for instance, that of the army officer in Germany, does not exist in 
the United States. Perhaps the legal profession would be looked 
on as the most important, and certainly it absorbs a very large 
proportion of the best strength of the nation. The high position 
given the jurist is probably in good part because, unlike his Con- 
tinental colleague, as we have explained at length, he actually takes 
part in shaping the law. In a different way the preacher is very 
greatly respected, but his profession decreases slowly in attractive- 
ness for the best talents of the country. The academic profes- 
sions, on the other hand, have drawn such talent more and 
more, and will continue to do so as the distinction grows sharper 
between the college teacher and the real university professor. The 
pre-eminently reproductive activities are naturally less enticing 



6o6 THE AMERICANS 

than those which are creative, and wherever talent is attracted it 
quickly accomplishes great things, and these work to improve the 
social status of the profession. The political profession, as such, is 
far down in the scale; only governors, senators, and the highest 
ministerial officials play an important social part. Of course, one 
cannot speak of the especial recognition of mercantile or industrial 
professions, because these offer too great a variety of attainment; 
but certainly their most influential representatives are socially 
inferior to none in the community. 

Social differentiation does not rest on a sharp discrimination 
of profession, and yet it is realized from the highest to the lowest 
circles of society, and to a degree which fifty years ago would have 
greatly antagonized at least the entire northern part of the country. 
In Washington, the exclusive hostess invites only the wives of 
senators, but not those of representatives, to her table; and in the 
Bowery, according to the accounts, the children of the peanut 
vendor do not deign to play with the children of the hurdy-gurdy 
man, who are vastly more humble. The Four Hundred in the 
large city quietly but resolutely decline to invite newly made mil- 
lionaires to dinner; and the seamstress, who comes to the house to 
sew or mend, refuses to sit down at table with the servants. Al- 
ready, in the large cities, the children of better families are not 
sent to public, but to private schools. The railroads have only one 
class of passenger coach; but the best society declines that, and 
rides in the Pullman cars. The same distinctions hold everywhere, 
and not merely as a matter of greater luxury for the rich, but as a 
real social distinction. At the theatre, the person who socially 
belongs in the parquet prefers to sit in one of the worst seats there 
to going into the balcony, where he does not belong, even though 
he might hear and see better. 

The increasing sympathy with badges, costumes, and uniforms — 
in short, with the symbols of differentiation — is very typical. There 
was a time in which a free American would have refused to wear a 
special livery; but to-day nobody objects, trom the elevator boy to 
the judge, to wear the marks of office. The holiday processions 
of working-men and veterans become gayer and gayer. Those who 
have seen the recent inaugurations of the presidents of Yale and 
Columbia have witnessed parades of hundreds of gay and, it 
seemed, partly fantastic costumes, such as are now worn at every 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 6oy 

university celebration in America — symbolic emblems which 
would have seemed impossible in this monotonous democracy 
twenty years ago. 

The inner life of universities gives also lively indication of social 
cleavage. In Harvard and Yale, there are exclusive clubs of the 
social leaders among the students. It is true that hundreds of 
students go through the university without paying any attention to 
such things; but there are almost as many more whose chief ambi- 
tion is to be elected into an exclusive circle, and who would feel 
compensated by no sort of scientific success if they were disap- 
pointed in their aspirations for club life. In the same way many 
families which have become wealthy in the West move to New 
York or Boston, in the vain hope of breaking into society. The 
social difference between near-lying residential sections is, indeed, 
much greater than in Europe; and real estate on a street which 
comes to be occupied by socially inferior elements rapidly depre- 
ciates, because the inhabitants of any residential section must 
stand on the same plane. 

The transformations which the place of the President in public 
consciousness has gone through are very characteristic. A newly 
elected President is to-day inaugurated with almost monarchical 
pomp, and he reviews the Navy, as he never would have thought 
of doing some years ago. He sits down first at the table and is 
served first. An invitation to the White House is felt as a command 
which takes precedence over any other engagement. All this has 
happened recently. It was not long ago that persons refused an 
invitation to the White House, because of previous engagements. 
In social life all men were merely "gentlemen," regardless of the 
capacities which they had during business hours, and in matters of 
invitation one visited the host who was first to invite one. All this 
is different now. 

There is even some indication of the use of titles. Twenty years 
ago students addressed their professors with a mister, but to-day 
more often with the title of professor; and the abuse of military 
titles which goes on in the West amuses the whole country. In the 
army itself aristocratic tendencies are strongly manifest, but only 
here and there come to general notice. Contrary to the spirit of 
official appointments, men are not advanced so rapidly who work 
up from a socially inferior level, but the social elite is favoured. 



6o8 THE AMERICANS 

Etiquette in social life is becoming more complicated; there is more 
formality, more symbolism in social intercourse. A nation which 
pays every year more than six million dollars for cut roses and four 
millions for carnations has certainly learned to decorate social life. 
There is even more etiquette in professional life. The professional 
behaviour of lav^yers, physicians, and scholars is in some respects, 
at least in the East, more narrowly prescribed than it is even in 
Europe. 

Looking at the situation as a whole, one sees the power of this 
new spirit, not so much in these petty symptoms as in the great 
movements of which we have spoken at length in other connections. 
There is the spirit of imperialism in foreign politics, and it cannot 
expand in its pride without working against the old democratic ten- 
dencies. There is the spirit of militarism, triumphantly proud of 
the victorious army and navy, demanding strict discipline and 
blind obedience to the commander. There is the spirit of racial 
pride, which persecutes the negro and the Chinese, and hinders the 
immigration of Eastern and Southern Europeans. There is the 
spirit of centralization, exalting the power of the state above the 
conflicting desires of the individual, and in economic matters 
hoping more from the intelligent initiative of the state as a whole 
than from the free competition of individuals, aqd assigning to the 
Federation tremendous undertakings, such as the irrigation of 
the West and the cutting of the Panama Canal. There is the 
spirit of aristocracy, tempting more and more the academically 
cultured and the wealthy into the political arena. There is the 
spirit of social differentiation coming into art and science, and 
bringing to the life of the nation ideals of beauty and of knowledge 
which are far above the vulgar comprehension. Eclectic taste is 
winning a victory over popular taste. The judgment of the most 
learned, the refinement of the most educated, and the wisdom of 
the most mature are being made prominent before the public mind. 
We have already seen how this new spirit grows and unfolds, and 
how the one-sidedness and eccentricities of political, economic, 
intellectual, and artistic democracy are being outgrown day by day, 
and how the America of Roosevelt's time is shaping itself in accord- 
ance with the civilizations of Western Europe. 

There are some who behold this development with profound 
concern. That which has made America's greatness, which 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 6og 

seemed to be her mission in the world, was the belief in the ethical 
worth of the individual. The doctrines of self-determination, 
self-initiative, and self-assertion, and the civilization which rested 
on such a foundation, have nothing to hope and much to fear from 
social differentiation and imperialism. Aristocratic tendencies ap- 
pear to undermine this ethical democracy, and the imperialistic 
symbols of our day mock the traditions of the past. There will 
certainly be many reactions against these aristocratic tendencies; 
perhaps they will be only small movements working through the 
press and at the ballot-box against the encroachments on the spirit 
of the past and against the expansion of office, and hindering those 
aristocratic tendencies which depart too far from the traditions of 
the masses. Perhaps, some day, there will be a great reaction. 
Perhaps the tremendous power possessed by the labouring classes 
in the country will lead to battles for ethical principles, in which 
the modern aesthetic development will be reversed; it would not be 
the first time on American soil that ethical reform has produced 
social deterioration, for "reform" means always the victory of 
naked, equalizing logic over the conservative forces which repre- 
sent historic differentiation. So the Revolution abolished the 
patrician society of New England, whose aristocratic members 
survive in the portraits of Copley; and the day may come when 
trades-unions will be victorious over that aristocracy which Sar- 
gent is now painting. Even the reform which emancipated the 
slaves destroyed a true and chivalrous aristocracy in the South. 

But it is more likely that the steady development will go on, and 
that there will be a harmonious co-operation between the funda- 
mental democratic forces and the lesser aristocratic ones. It can- 
not be doubted that that democracy of which we have aimed to 
describe the real inteht, will remain the fundamental force under 
the American Constitution; and however strict military discipline 
may become, however aristocratic the social differentiations, how- 
ever imperialistic the politics, however esoteric art and science, 
undoubtedly the greatest question put by every American to his 
brother will be: "What do you, purely as an individual, amount 
to?" The ethical rights and the ethical duties of the individual 
will be the ultimate standard, and aristocratic pomp will always 
be suppressed in America whenever it commences to restrain the 
passion for justice and for self-determination. 



6io THE AMERICANS 

The most serious Americans are in the position of Tantalus; 
they see, in a thousand ways and at a thousand places, that a cer- 
tain advance could be made if somehow the vulgar masses could 
be got out of the way; they see how civic and national ends could 
be attained almost without trouble by the ample means of the 
country, if as in Europe, the most intelligent minds could be put in 
control. They want all this most seriously; and yet they cannot 
have it, because in the bottom of their hearts they really do not 
wish it. They feel too profoundly that the gain would be only 
apparent, that the moral force of the nation would be sacrificed 
if a single citizen should lose the confidence that he himself is re- 
sponsible for the nation which he helps to guide and to make. The 
easy attainment of success is only a secondary matter; the purity 
of the individual will is the main consideration. With this stands 
or falls American culture. Development is first of all an ethical 
problem; just because the world is incomplete, is hard, and un- 
beautiful, and everywhere needs to be transformed by human 
labour, just on that account human life is inexhaustibly valuable. 
This is the fundamental thought, and will remain so as long as 
the New World remains true to its ideals. The finer notes are 
only an overtone in the great chord; it is only faintly discerned 
that the world is valuable when it is beautiful — after it has been 
mastered and completed. 

In this opposition between the ethical and the zesthetic, be- 
tween the democratic and the aristocratic, America will never 
sacrifice her fundamental conviction, will never follow aristocratic 
tendencies further than where they are needed to correct the 
dangerous one-sidedness and the excrescences of democratic in- 
dividualism; at least, never so far that any danger will threaten the 
democracy. The pride of the true American is, once and for all, 
not the American country, nor yet American achievements, but 
the American personality. 

One who seeks the profoundest reality that history has to offer, 
not in the temporal unfolding of events, but in the interplay of 
human wills, will agree with the American's judgment of himself. 
Looking at the people of the New World even from afar, one will 
find the fascination, novelty, and greatness of the American world 
mission, not in what the American has accomplished, but in what 
he desires and will desire. 



ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 6ii 

Nevertheless, this will not seem strange or foreign to any Ger- 
man. In the depths of his soul, he has himself a similar play of 
desires. In the course of history, reverence and faithfulness de- 
veloped in the German soul more strongly than the individualistic 
craving for self-determination and self-assertion; aristocratic love 
of beauty and truth developed before the democratic spirit 
of self-initiative. But to-day, in modern Germany, these very 
instincts are being aroused, just as in modern America those 
forces are growing which have long dominated the German soul. 

The American still puts the higher value on the personal, the 
German on the over-personal; the American on the intrinsic value 
of the creating will, the German on the intrinsic value of the abso- 
lute ideal. But every day sees the difference reduced, and brings 
the two nations nearer to a similar attitude of mind. Moreover, 
both of these fundamental tendencies are equally idealistic, and 
both of these nations are therefore destined to understand and 
to esteem each other, mutually to extend their friendship, to emu- 
late each other, and to work together, so that in the confused play 
of temporal forces the intrinsically valuable shall be victorious 
over the temporary and fleeting, the ideal over the accidental. 
For both nations feel together, in the depths of their being, that 
in order to give meaning to life man must believe in timeless 
ideals. 



THE END 



THE MOCLURE PRESS, NEW YORK 



INDEX 



INDEX 



A 



Aesthetic Tendencies, 105, 253 f, 

359» 489 f, 492-494, 590. 603 
After-Dinner Speeches, 153 ■ 
Agriculture, 259 f, 265 f, 272, 276 
Alaska, 23, 112, 204 
Ambassadors, 64, 187 
Americanism, 5 f, 54, 141 f, 164, 20l f, 

278 f, 458 f, 459-461 
Ancestry, 598-600 
Anglo-Saxons, 102 f, 163, 302 
Architecture, 484-490 
Aristocratic Tendencies, 8 f, 78, 175, 

199, 418, 500, 531, 534f,-545> 590- 

611 
Army, 64, 186, 206 f, 226 
Art, 158, 350, 473-495 
Average Opinion, 8, 26, 54, 557, 604 

B 

Baptists, 499, 508, 512 
Budget, 91 f 
Bureaucracy, 257 f 

Business Crises, 268-71, 273-5, 282 f, 
286 f 

c 

Cabinet, 27, 65 f, 80, 91, 144, 156 

Canada, 16 f, 166, 211-216 

Capital, 44, 48, 145, 271 f, 275, 287, 

303 f. 307, 335, 342 
Capitol, 85, loi, 482, 486 
Carnegie Institute, 432 f 
CathoHcs, 15, 17, 50 f, 155, 499, 507-9, 



Chautauqua, 382-4, 391 

Chicago University, 234, 385, 420 f 

Children, 28 f, 556 

Chinese, 165, 331 

Christian Science, 519 f 

Church, 155, 354, 360 f, 380, 496-527 

Cities, 115-136,347 f 

Civil Disturbances: see also Strikes, 64 

Civil-Service Reform, 43, 59 f, 188 f 

Civil War, 42, 44 f, 169, 174, 280 

Clark University, 419 

Clubs, 153 

Co-Education, 374 f, 417, 423, 560-4 

College, 366, 396 f 401-8, 421 f, 564-6, 

586 f, 600-2 
Columbia University, 198, 234, 418, 436 
Commerce, 207 f, 214 f, 224, 261-4, 

271 f, 293 f, 296, 298 f, 347 
Committee System, 90, 92 f, 128 
Common Lav^', 102-4, 4^3, 55^^ 
Competition, 246, 249 f, 302 f, 306, 7,IJ, 

340, 342 
Congregationalists, 509 f 
Congress, 21, 35, 38, 45, 57 f, 64, 85- 

100, 106, no, 112, 161, 193, 313 f 
Constitution, 11, 21 f, 35, 46, 63, 65 f, 

106 f, 113, 117, 176,203,497 
Consuls, 81, 186, 255 
Contract Labour, 161 f 
Cornell University, 419 f 
Corruption, 29 f, 40, 44, 51, 57 f, 61 f, 

98 f, 124, 128, 130-3, 135 f, 152, 163, 

176, 186, 191 f, 194 f, 288, 311, 376 
Crime, 32, 162 f, 179 f, 522 f, 551 f 
Cuba, 205 f, 209, 221 
Culture, 348 f, 354 f, 586-9, 600-2 



6i6 



THE AMERICANS 



D 



Declaration of Independence, 4, 19, 

78, 210, 221 
Democracy, 7 f, 57, 79, 116, 137 f, 218 f, 

221, 240, 321, 359, 368, 531-6, 538 f, 

591, 609 f 
Democratic Party, 40 f, 46, 48 f, 99, 

127, 197, 282, 285, 288 f, 292-5, 297 f, 

300 
Department of Commerce and Labour, 

185, 316 
Dilettanteism, 26, 557, 588, 602-4 
Divorce, 122, 523, 575 f 
Dower, 231 
Drama, 471 f, 474-6 



E 



Germany, 7, 10 f, 37, 60, 103 f, 107, 115, 
132, 141, 189 f, 258 f, 263 f, 281, 308, 

319 f. 351, 379» 394-7. 4i3 f. 47^, 504, 

55of, 577f, 611 
Gold Democrats, 43, 285 f 
Government Bureaus, 429 f, 445 f, 450 f 
Governors, 35, 118 

H 

Hague, The, Tribunal, 202, 209 
Harvard University, 231 f, 234, 349 f, 

353, 408-1 1, 413-7, 436, 450, 466, 510, 

520 f, 600 
House of Representatives, 21, 65, 67, 

85 f, 89, 92 
Humour, 142 f, 148, 469, 543 f 



Economic Rise, 255-277 

Education: see also Schools, etc., 170, 

180 f 
Elections, 36 f, 39, 62 f, 67, 70 f, 138, 

464 
Electors, 39, 67 f 

Emancipation of Woman, 570 f, 574-89 
Employers, 322, 325 f,332 f, 335, 337 f, 

341 f 
England, 12 f, 17-9, 211-4, 258, 263 f, 

272, 290, 457, 459 f, 465, 485 f, 536 f 
Episcopalians, 510 f 
Executive: see also Presidency, 90, no, 

156, 188, 193 
Expansion : see also Imperialism, 201 f, 

204-16, 223 



Federation, 14, 20, 290 
Foreign Affairs, 64, 201-26 
Free Trade, 42 f, 48 

G 

Gambling, 232 f 
German-Americans, 51, 199 



Idealism, 236 f, 253-5, 35^ f. 611 
Illiteracy, 162, 181 f 
Immigrants, 5 f, 24, 133, 164, 321, 587 
Immigration, 23, 158-61, 185 
Imperialism : see also Expansion, 42 f, 

53, 605, 607-9 
Income Tax, 36, 48, ill f 
Indians, 16, 165-7 
Individualism, 3 f, 20, 22, 26, 31 f, 43 f, 

104, 123, 197, 229, 239 f, 322 f, ^z^, 

354 f, 357» 495. 5^6, 540 f, 546 f, 

604 f, 609-11 
Industry, 229, 238, 243 f, 251, 255 f, 

260-7, 272-7, 286, 295 f, 310, 321 f 
Integrity: see also Honesty, 28 f, 44, 

51, 76, 181, 230, 238, 245 f, 308, 521 f, 

525. 549 
Internal Politics, 185-200 
Inventions, 244 f, 248 f, 265 f, 394 
Irrigation, 157, 608 



Jews, 514 

Johns Hopkins University, 234, 417, 

419. 436 
Judiciary, 21, 34 f, 83, 101-14, 134 



K 

Kindergarten, 379, 381 f 
Knights of Labour, 326-9 
Know-Nothings, 161 



INDEX 



6iy 



Negroes, 21 f, 32, 44, 50, 87, 167 f, 512 

New Mexico, 23 

Newspapers, 30, 146-51, 196-9, 461 f, 

o 



Labour, 145, 157, 164, 170 f, 294 f, 

318-343, 609 
Lawyers, 104, 424, 605 
Lectures, 153, 382, 385-92 
Legislative, 34 f, 86, 90 
Leisure, 242 f, 550 
Leland Stanford University, 420 f 
Libraries, 124, 362 f, 449-56 
Literature, 350, 438-42, 449-72 
Lobbies, 98 
Local Representation, 38 f, 52, 94, 99 f, 

128 f, 131 f 
Lotteries, 231 

Louisiana, 23, 102, 204, 208 
Lutherans, 512 f 
Luxury : see also Millionaires, 235, 

252 f, 348, 537 f, 571 f» 592 
Lynch Law, 32, 179 f 

M 

Magazines, 152 f, 437, 455 f, 462 f, 502 
Marriage, 504, 516, 523, 575-7, 578-83 
Materialism, 230-3, 236 f 
Mayors, 35, 120, 133 
Mennonites, 16, 499, 513 
Methodists, 501, 508, 511 f 
Mexico, 23, 112, 166, 204, 219 
Millionaires : see also Philanthropy, 57, 

89. 158, 233 f, 239, 323, 538, 591-3 
Monroe Doctrine, 159, 207, 216-26 
Mormons, 156, 515 f 
Museums, 431, 433, 491 f 
Music, 476-480 
Mysticism, 360, 517-9, 587 

Natural Resources, 255 f, 260 

Navy, 64, 186 



Optimism, 234, 247, 501 

Oregon, 23 

Organization, 33, 92, 190, 322 f, 539 



Painting, 480-483 

Panama Canal, 209 f, 211, 221, 608 

Parties, 31, 35-62, 70, 92, 99, 113, 132 f, 

ns, 138 f, 148, 151 f, 154, 191 f. 195. 

213 
Patents, 107 
Peace: see also The Hague Tribunal, 

10 1, 201-3, 208 f, 226 
Pensions, 84 
Philanthropy, 124, 1 73, 233 f, 271, 

418 f, 423, 448, 476 f, 506, 526, 547-9, 

597 <■ 
Philippines, 43, 47, 204-10 
Philosophy, 436 f, 468 
Police, 122 
Politicians, t,-], 55, 58 f, 70, 191, 195, 

606 
Population, 155-84 
Porto Rico, 112 
Post OflBce, 187, 190, 194 f 
Presbyterians, 511 
Presidency, 35 f, 39, 63-84, 113, 145, 

189, 607 
President Cleveland, 36, 41 f, 61, 63, 

65, 80 f, 285 f, 292 f 
President Eliot, of Harvard, 410 f, 

520 f 
President Jackson, 63, 192 
President Jefferson, 19, 47 f, 63, 219, 

498 
President McKinley, 36, 41 f, 53, 63, 

65 f. 70 f> 11 f. 11. 80 f, 203 f, 214, 

270, 293-6, 299 f, 594 
President Lincoln, 46 f, 63, 65 f 



6i8 



THE AMERICANS 



President Roosevelt, 42, 62, 65 f, "j^ f, 

178 f, 185 f, 193, 202, 300, 302, 312 f, 

315 f, 326, 336, 384, 594 
President Washington, 12, 21, 63, 67, 

III, 218, 432 
Prices, 319 f 
Protection, 42, 48, 197, 214, 255, 267, 

289-301, 311 f 
Public Opinion, 29, 137-54, 158, 190, 

198, 500 
Puritans, 14, 50, 352-9, 364, 473, 483, 

498, 505> 509. 522 
Psychology, 378 f, 437 f 

Q 

Quakers, 15, 513, 516 f 

R 

Race Suicide, 581-83 
Railroads, 247, 256 f, 272-4, 303, 490 
Reciprocity, 214 f, 299 
Reform, 74, 148, 198-200, 348, 350, 609 
Religion: see also Church, 496-527 
Republican Party, 40 f, 44 f, 49 f, 196 f, 
288 f, 294, 296 f, 312 f 



Schools, 163 f,36i f, 365-92, 493, 506 f, 

584, 587 
Science, 158, 393, 412, 425-48 
Scientific Societies, 433-6 
Sculpture, 483 f 
Secretary Hay, 82, 223 
Secretary of State, 81 f 
Self-Assertion, 531-57, 57° f, 574 f 
Self-Direction, 3-34, 38 f, 125 f, 164 f, 

239, 499 
Self-Initiative, 229-54, 255 f, 306, 374, 

459, 596 f 
Self-Perfection, 347-64, 392, 520 f 
Senate, 21, 64, 85-8, 90, 95-8, 190, 193 
Servants, 540 f, 568 
Silver Question, 42 f, 49, 157, 279-89 



Slavery, 14, 21, 42-5, 168 f, 213 

Slums, 158 

Smithsonian Institution, 430 f 

Socialism, 156 f, 324, 538 

Society, 235, 241, 504, 533-5, 539 f, 

59i-3> 595 
South: see also Slavery, 116, 168 f, 

172 f, 176 f, 276 f, 470 f 
Spanish War, 74 f, 203, 205 f, 208, 213, 

270 
Speaker of the House, 'j'^, 93 
Spoils System, 40, 42, 59 f 
Sport, 8, 55, 250, 493, 542 f, 565, 592 
State Courts, 106 f, 108 
State Legislatures, 38, 106, 118 f 
State Rights, 20-2, 38, 115-8, 290, 314 
State Universities, 400 f, 419, 564 
Strikes, 325 f, 330 f, 333-9 
Suffrage, 87, 158, 175 f, 183 f 
Supreme Court, 35 f, 45, 64 f, loi f, 

109 f, 112 f, 315 f 



Tammany, 198 

Tariff: see also Protection, Il2f, 214, 

290 f 
Taxation, 32, 48, in f, 157, 369 
Temperance, 198-200, 242, 523 f 
Theatres, 124, 149 f, 473-6, 524 
Thirteen Colonies, 18 f 
Tovpns, 120 f, 125 
Trades-Unions, 325, 327-34, 343 
Treasury, 82 f, 92, 281-5 
Treaties, 64, 97 

Trials: see also Lynch Law, 108, 551 f 
Trusts, 43, 229, 249, 270 f, 275 f, 301-18 



U 



Uniformity, 117, 258, 553-5, 592, 596 
Unitarians, 351, 411, 506, 510 
Universities, 366 f, 393-424, 5^5 
University of Michigan, 421 
Utilitarianism, 355-9, 364 



Venezuela, 203, 219 f 
Veto, 64 f, 90 
Vice-Presidency, 72 f, 96 
Virginia, 13 f, 121, 352, 365, 511 

w 



INDEX 



6ig 



White House, 77 

Woman, 144 f, 375, 386, 422, 558-89 
Woman's Suffrage, 87, 158, 572-5 
Women's Colleges, 416 f, 422-4, 564-6 
Women Wage-Earners, 566-70, 580 
World Powers, 78 f, 223, 351 f, 494 



Waste, 250, 266, 268, 379 



Yale University, 234, 353, 417 f 



n 310 8 8 




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